Information processing apparatus and information processing method

ABSTRACT

An information processing device  11  causes a display  14  to display a program guide in which program information broadcast in one channel is placed in a region having a date axis and a time axis. When a moving operation of the cursor in the time axis direction on the program guide, which particularly is a moving operation from a broadcasting program on a certain date to another broadcasting program on a next date, is accepted, the broadcasting program on the next date is displayed at a position on the date axis at which the broadcasting program on the certain date is displayed, without moving the cursor in the date axis direction.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates to a data processing technology and, moreparticularly, to a technology for displaying an electronic program table(hereinafter referred to also as “EPG” (Electronic Program Guide).

BACKGROUND ART

In digital television broadcasting in recent years, information ofprograms is transmitted by a broadcasting signal and an electronicprogram guide is sometimes displayed on a television receiver or arecording apparatus. Usually, an electronic program guide is displayedin such a form that information of a plurality of programs is disposedin a two-dimensional region having a time axis and a channel axis.

SUMMARY Technical Problem

An electronic program guide so far merely presents summary informationof a program determined by a broadcasting station or the like and merelyis a sort of a program guide published in a newspaper or a magazine anddisplayed as electronic data. Therefore, the inventor of the presentinvention estimated that the usability of the electronic program guideis not necessarily good to viewers.

The present invention has been made in view of such an estimation of theinventor of the present invention as described above, and it is aprincipal object of the present invention to provide a technology thatimplements an electronic program guide superior in usability to aviewer.

Solution to Problem

In order to solve the problem described above, an information processingapparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention includes:a program guide displaying unit configured to cause a predetermineddisplay apparatus to display a program guide in which programinformation broadcast in one channel is placed in a region having a dateaxis and a time axis; and a cursor displaying unit configured to have acursor displayed for allowing a user to select a specific program on theprogram guide and place, when a moving operation of the cursor in thetime axis direction on the program guide is accepted, the cursor into astate in which the cursor selects a program to be broadcast in a timezone different from that till then. The program guide displaying unithas, when a moving operation of the cursor in the time axis direction onthe program guide, which particularly is a moving operation from abroadcasting program on a certain date to another broadcasting programon a next date, is accepted, the broadcasting program on the next datedisplayed at a position on the date axis at which the broadcastingprogram on the certain date is displayed.

Another embodiment of the present invention is an information processingmethod. This method is a method executed by an information processingapparatus and includes: a step of causing a predetermined displayapparatus to display a program guide in which program informationbroadcast in one channel is placed in a region having a date axis and atime axis; a step of having a cursor displayed for allowing a user toselect a specific program on the program guide and placing, when amoving operation of the cursor in the time axis direction on the programguide is accepted, the cursor into a state in which the cursor selects aprogram to be broadcast in a time zone different from that till then;and a step of having, when a moving operation of the cursor in the timeaxis direction on the program guide, which particularly is a movingoperation from a broadcasting program on a certain date to anotherbroadcasting program on a next date, is accepted, the broadcastingprogram on the next date displayed at a position on the date axis atwhich the broadcasting program on the certain date is displayed.

It is to be noted that optional combinations of the constitutingelements described above and those obtained by converting therepresentations of the present invention between or among an apparatus,a method, a system, a program, a recording medium on or in which theprogram is stored and so forth are also effective as embodiments of thepresent invention.

Advantageous Effect of Invention

According to the present invention, an electronic program guide superiorin usability can be provided to a viewer.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 shows the configuration of an information processing systemaccording to a first form of the base technology.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the functional configuration of atuner of FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing the functional configuration of aninformation management server of FIG. 1.

FIG. 4 shows the structure of data stored in a tally result storageunit.

FIG. 5 shows the hardware configuration of an information processingapparatus of FIG. 1.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing the functional configuration of theinformation processing apparatus of FIG. 1.

FIG. 7 shows the structure of data stored in a program informationstorage unit.

FIG. 8 shows the structure of data stored in a recording informationstorage unit.

FIG. 9 shows an exemplary portal screen as displayed.

FIG. 10 shows an exemplary standby screen as displayed.

FIG. 11 shows an exemplary image display screen.

FIG. 12 shows an exemplary image display screen.

FIG. 13 shows an exemplary first program guide as displayed.

FIG. 14 shows an exemplary second program guide as displayed.

FIG. 15 shows an exemplary second program guide as displayed.

FIG. 16 shows an exemplary second program guide as displayed.

FIG. 17 shows an exemplary second program guide as displayed.

FIG. 18( a) shows an exemplary second program guide as displayed.

FIG. 18( b) shows an exemplary second program guide as displayed.

FIG. 19 shows an exemplary video screen showing a list of recordings.

FIG. 20 is a flowchart showing the operation of the informationprocessing apparatus.

FIG. 21 is a flowchart showing S20 of FIG. 20 in further detail.

FIG. 22 shows S24 of FIG. 20 in further detail.

FIG. 23 shows S28 of FIG. 20 in further detail.

FIG. 24 is a flowchart showing the operation of the informationprocessing apparatus.

FIG. 25 shows an exemplary first program guide as displayed in anexemplary variation.

FIG. 26 shows the configuration of an information processing systemaccording to a second form of the base technology.

FIG. 27 is a block diagram showing the functional configuration of aninformation processing apparatus of FIG. 26.

FIG. 28 is a block diagram showing a comment storage unit of FIG. 27 infurther detail.

FIG. 29 shows the configuration of data stored in a fixed-commentstorage unit.

FIG. 30 is a block diagram showing a comment processing unit of FIG. 27in further detail.

FIG. 31 is a block diagram showing a comment displaying unit of FIG. 27in further detail.

FIG. 32 shows an exemplary image display screen as displayed.

FIG. 33 is a flowchart showing the operation of the informationprocessing apparatus of FIG. 26.

FIG. 34 shows an exemplary all-TL screen as displayed.

FIG. 35 shows an exemplary channel TL screen as displayed.

FIG. 36 shows an exemplary hashtag TL screen as displayed.

FIG. 37 is a flowchart that continues from FIG. 33.

FIG. 38 shows an exemplary tweet menu screen as displayed.

FIG. 39 shows an exemplary comment creating screen as displayed.

FIG. 40 shows an exemplary information screen as displayed.

FIG. 41 shows the configuration of an information processing system ofan embodiment.

FIG. 42 is a block diagram showing a detailed functional configurationof a program information acquisition unit.

FIG. 43 schematically shows program information acquired by a firstprogram information acquisition unit.

FIG. 44 schematically shows program information acquired by a secondprogram information acquisition unit.

FIG. 45 is a block diagram showing a detailed functional configurationof a program guide displaying unit.

FIG. 46 schematically shows a second program guide.

FIG. 47 schematically shows a one-week program guide.

FIG. 48 schematically shows another one-week program guide.

FIG. 49 is a flowchart showing the operation of the informationprocessing apparatus.

FIG. 50 is a flowchart showing a second program guide displaying processin S202 of FIG. 49 in further detail.

DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS Base Technology

A description is now given of the base technology before explaining anembodiment of the present invention. The base technology provides aninformation processing technology of improving the comfort andconvenience of a user viewing a program that is being broadcast or aprogram broadcast in the past. The information processing technologyincludes the following four technical elements.

A summary of the first technical element will be discussed. Conventionalelectronic program guides merely present summary information related toprograms and defined by broadcasting stations, etc. As such, they arenot necessarily convenient to use for viewers. The base technologyprovides a technology for providing an electronic program guide thatprovides excellent usability for viewers. For example, the electronicprogram guide of a form of the base technology provides a user interfacewhereby the convenience for viewers viewing program information isimproved.

A summary of the second technical element will be discussed. Currently,Internet connection is available in a growing number of households.Information appliances in possession of a viewer of a program areequipped with the capabilities of exchanging data with a server on theInternet. The base technology proposes a technology of providing anelectronic program guide that is based on data exchange over theInternet and designed to present information useful for viewers as wellas mere program summaries. For example, the electronic program guideaccording to a form of the base technology presents the popularityranking of a plurality of programs broadcast in the same time zone.

A summary of the third technical element will be discussed. The basetechnology provides a technology that implements a user-friendly userinterface in a portal screen that serves as a primary entrance tovarious functional screens including the display screen of an electronicprogram guide. For example, the portal screen according to a form of thebase technology provides latest information on program viewing usefulfor viewers of a program.

A summary of the fourth technical element will be discussed. The basetechnology provides a technology that provides a search result usefulfor a viewer viewing a program. For example, the program viewing screenaccording to a form of the base technology displays a result of Internetsearch using a keyword related to the program along with the image ofthe program.

FIG. 1 shows the configuration of an information processing systemaccording to a first form of the base technology of the presentinvention. An information processing system 100 is configured such thata plurality of program viewing systems 10, an information managementserver 16, and a search server 17 are connected via the Internet 15.

The program viewing system 10 allows viewing, recording, reproducing ofterrestrial digital television broadcast, and displaying of a programguide. The program viewing system 10 includes an information processingapparatus 11, a controller 12, a tuner 13, and a display 14. In thefirst form of the base technology, the program viewing system 10represents a unit of “viewers.” Therefore, two or more people watchingthe display 14 may be dealt with as one viewer.

The tuner 13 is a terrestrial digital television tuner. The tuner 13receives a broadcast signal on a channel selected by the viewer anddecodes the broadcast signal into image information. The tuner 13 thensends the image information to the information processing apparatus 11.The tuner 13 also acquires EPG information (program information) fromthe broadcast signal and sends the information to the informationprocessing apparatus 11. The tuner 13 and the information processingapparatus 11 may be connected by a universal serial bus (USB) cable.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the functional configuration of thetuner 13 of FIG. 1. The blocks shown in the block diagram areimplemented by hardware, i.e., components and mechanical devices, suchas CPU or memory of a computer, or by software such as a computerprogram. FIG. 2 depicts functional blocks implemented by the cooperationof hardware and software. Therefore, it will be obvious to those skilledin the art that the functional blocks may be implemented in a variety ofmanners by a combination of hardware and software.

The tuner 13 includes a coaxial cable interface unit 200, a B-CAS(registered trademark) card interface unit 202, a USB interface unit204, and a signal processing unit 206. The coaxial cable interface unit200 functions as an interface with a coaxial cable connected to theantenna and acquires a broadcast signal of terrestrial digitaltelevision broadcast. The B-CAS card interface unit 202 functions as aninterface with a B-CAS card and acquires an encryption key for decodingthe broadcast signal from the B-CAS card.

The USB interface unit 204 functions as an interface with a USB cableand acquires identification information of the channel selected by theviewer from the information processing apparatus 11. Further, the USBinterface unit 204 sends image information on the selected channel andEPG information to the information processing apparatus 11. The signalprocessing unit 206 retrieves a signal on the channel selected by theviewer from the broadcast signal and decodes the signal into imageinformation according to the encryption key of the B-CAS card.

Referring back to FIG. 1, the information processing apparatus 11 is acomputer terminal connected to the Internet 15 that acknowledges theviewer's operation via the controller 12 and is operated accordingly.The information processing apparatus 11 may be a desktop game device. Aprogram viewer application (hereinafter, also referred to as “programviewer AP”), for displaying and recording live transmission of a programbroadcast on terrestrial digital television and for playing backrecorded images, is installed in the information processing apparatus11. Also installed in the information processing apparatus 11 is a webbrowser for interpreting data for a structure document described inHTML, XML, etc. and displaying the result.

When the program viewer AP is started in the information processingapparatus 11, the information processing apparatus 11 may, for example,acquire image information on the channel selected by the viewer from thetuner 13 and display the program image on the display 14. Theinformation processing apparatus 11 may also acquire EPG informationfrom the tuner 13 and display an electronic program guide on the display14. The detailed configuration of the information processing apparatus11 will be described later. The information processing apparatus 11 andthe display 14 may be connected by a high-definition multimediainterface (HDMI: registered trademark) cable.

The information management server 16 manages the status of viewingprograms acquired from the plurality of program viewing systems 10 anddelivers the viewing status to each of the program viewing systems 10.The detailed configuration of the information management server 16 willbe described later. The search server 17 provides a search service andsupplies the source originating a search request with informationindicating a web page with a high score of matching with the search keydesignated in the search request.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing the functional configuration of theinformation management server 16 of FIG. 1. It will be appreciated to askilled person that the functional blocks of FIG. 3, like those of FIG.2, may be implemented in a variety of manners by a combination ofhardware and software. For example, the functional blocks of FIG. 3 maybe stored in a predetermined recording medium as computer programs. Theprograms may be installed in a hard disk of the information managementserver 16, read into a main memory of the information management server16, and run by a processor.

The information management server 16 includes a communication processingunit 20, a tally result storage unit 22, and a data processing unit 24for performing various data processes. The data processing unit 24 mayinclude a viewer tally unit 26, a programmed recording tally unit 28,and an indicator providing unit 30.

The communication processing unit 20 performs a process of communicatingwith an external device via the Internet 15. The data processing unit 24exchanges data with the information processing apparatus 11 in theprogram viewing system 10 via the communication processing unit 20. Thetally result storage unit 22 is a storage area for storing dataindicating the tally score in the viewer tally unit 26 and theprogrammed recording tally unit 28 described later.

FIG. 4 shows the structure of data stored in the tally result storageunit 22. A program ID field is adapted to contain a program ID uniquelyidentifying a program broadcast on a specific date and time. Programsbroadcast on a periodical basis with the same program title are assigneddifferent ID's if broadcast on different time and date. It is assumedthat the program ID is defined in advance in the EPG information. Aviewer count field is adapted to contain the total number of viewerscurrently viewing the program identified by the program ID. In the firstform of the base technology, the viewers are categorized according tothe age group and sex. Each subfield is adapted to contain the totalnumber in the respective category. A programmed recording count field isadapted to contain the total number of viewers having programmed therecording of the program identified by the program ID, categorizing theviewers according to the age group and sex.

Referring back to FIG. 3, the viewer tally unit 26 acquires the programID of the program currently viewed by the viewer from each of theplurality of information processing apparatuses 11 on a periodical basisand adds up the number of viewers viewing each program. In the firstform of the base technology, viewer attributes (i.e., age group and sex)are acquired along with the program ID. The number of viewers viewingthe program identified by the program ID is added up for each viewerattribute so that the resultant score is stored in the tally resultstorage unit 22.

The programmed recording tally unit 28 acquires the program ID of theprogram that the viewer has programmed to record from each of theplurality of information processing apparatuses 11 on a periodical basisand adds up the number of recordings programmed. In the first form ofthe base technology, viewer attributes are acquired along with theprogram ID. The number of recordings programmed for the programidentified by the program ID is added up for each viewer attribute sothat the resultant score is stored in the tally result storage unit 22.

The indicator providing unit 30 supplies the information processingapparatus 11 with an indicator indicating the status of viewing programsin the information processing system 100. The indicator includes anindicator indicative of the number of viewers viewing a program(hereinafter, live indicator) and an indicator indicative of the numberof viewers that have programmed recordings of the program (hereinafter,programmed recording indicator).

More specifically, the indicator providing unit 30 transmits, as a liveindicator, the number of viewers, categorized according to the age groupand sex, stored in the tally result storage unit 22 to the informationprocessing apparatus 11. The indicator providing unit 30 also transmitsthe number of recordings programmed, categorized according to the agegroup and sex, stored in the tally result storage unit 22 to theinformation processing apparatus 11.

In one variation, the indicator providing unit 30 may supply, as a liveindicator, the result of entering the number of viewers in apredetermined evaluation function instead of the number of viewersitself. For example, the number of viewers of a given program relativeto the total number of viewers, i.e. the viewing rate, may be supplied.The same is true of the programmed recording indicator. For example, thenumber of programmed recordings of a given program relative to the totalnumber of viewers, i.e., the programmed recording rate, may be suppliedas a programmed recording indicator.

FIG. 5 shows the hardware configuration of the information processingapparatus 11 of FIG. 1. The information processing apparatus 11includes, as basic components, a CPU 300, a graphic processor unit (GPU)302, an input and output processor 304, an optical disk reading unit306, a main memory 308, a mask ROM 310, and a sound processor 312.

The CPU 300 controls signal processing and internal components based onvarious programs such as a game, an e-mail program, and an applicationfor a web browser. The CPU 300 may be a multicore CPU such as a CELL.Alternatively, the CPU 300 may be a heterogeneous multicore CPU in whicha plurality of heterogeneous processor cores are combined.

The GPU 302 performs image processing. The input and output processor304 performs a process for interfacing between an external device andinternal components, or a process for maintaining downwardcompatibility. The optical disk reading unit 306 reads from an opticaldisk such as a BD, DVD, and CD in which an application program ormultimedia data is recorded. The main memory 308 functions as a bufferthat temporarily stores data read from a work area of the CPU 300 or theoptical disk. The mask ROM 310 primarily stores an operating systemprogram run by the CPU 300 or the input and output processor 304. Thesound processor 312 processes a sound signal.

The information processing apparatus 11 also includes a CD/DVD/BDprocessor 314, an optical disk reading driver 316, a mechanismcontroller 318, a hard disk drive 334, and a card connector (e.g., a PCcard slot) 320. The CD/DVD/BD processor 314 applies an error correction(e.g., cross interleave Reed-Solomon coding (CIRC)) process or anexpanding and decoding process on a disk signal read by the optical diskreading unit 306 from a CD/DVD/BD and amplified by an RF amplifier 328.Thereby, the data recorded in the CD/DVD/BD is reproduced (restored).The optical disk reading driver 316 and the mechanism controller 318control the rotation of a spindle motor of the optical disk reading unit306, focusing/tracking of an optical pickup, and loading of a disk tray.

The hard disk drive 334 stores data saved from an application program orgame read from the optical disk reading unit 306, or stores data such asphotos, moving images, and music acquired via the input and outputprocessor 304. The card connector 320 is a connection port for acommunication card, an external hard disk drive 336, etc.

These components are primarily connected to each other via bus lines322, 324, etc. The CPU 300 and the GPU 302 are connected via a dedicatedbus. The CPU 300 and the input and output processor 304 are connectedvia SBUS. The input and output processor 304 is connected to theCD/DVD/BD processor 314, the mask ROM 310, the sound processor 312, thecard connector 320, and the hard disk drive 334 via SSBUS.

The CPU 300 controls the overall operation of the information processingapparatus 11 by running the operating system program for the CPU storedin the mask ROM 310. The CPU 300 reads various data from an optical disksuch as CD, DVD, BD, etc. and loads the data into the main memory 308.The CPU 300 may also run various application programs downloaded via acommunication network and control games, creation/editing of e-mailmessages, or an operation like web page browsing.

The input and output processor 304 runs an operating system program forthe input and output processor stored in the mask ROM 310 and therebycontrols input and output. For example, the input and output processor304 controls the input and output of user-generated signals or gamesettings from the controller 12, contents or addresses of e-mailmessages, or data from a memory card 326 adapted to store web site URLs,etc.

Further, the input and output processor 304 controls data input andoutput via a USB connection terminal 333, a network card 330, anIEEE1394 terminal or a PC card slot (not shown), etc. For example, theinput and output processor 304 may be connected to the tuner 13 via theUSB connection terminal 333 or connected to the Internet 15 via thenetwork card 330. The input and output processor 304 may also performdata input and output through the memory card 326 via the PC card slot(not shown). Information from the controller 12 or the memory card ismediated by an interface 332 which includes a multimedia slot and awireless transmission/reception port.

For example, the wireless transmission/reception port communicates witha game controller or a BD/DVD operation controller using wireless LAN orBluetooth (registered trademark). The interface 332 is also providedwith an interface with an HDMI (registered trademark) cable and outputsimage data to the display 14 via the interface.

The GPU 302 is provided with the function of a geometry transfer enginefor processes like coordinate conversion and the function of a renderingprocessor. The GPU 302 renders an image in accordance with a renderinginstruction from the CPU 300 and stores the rendered image in a framebuffer (not shown). For example, given that an application programstored in an optical disk uses three-dimensional (3D) graphics (e.g., agame program), the GPU 302 computes the coordinates of polygons formingthree-dimensional objects by performing geometric computation. In therendering process, the GPU 302 performs computation to generate an imageobtained by capturing the three-dimensional object with a virtualcamera, i.e., computation for perspective transformation (computation ofcoordinate values occurring when the vertices of polygons forming thethree dimensional object are projected onto a virtual camera screen).The image data ultimately obtained is written in the frame buffer. TheGPU 302 outputs a video signal corresponding to the image thusgenerated.

The sound processor 312 is provided with functions for adaptivedifferential pulse code modulation (ADPCM) decoding, audio signalreproduction, signal modulation, etc. The ADPCM decoding function is afunction of reconstructing and outputting an audio signal for soundeffects, etc. by reading waveform data stored in a sound buffer (notshown) built in the sound processor 312 or externally coupled to thesound processor 312. The signal modulation function also functions as asampling sound source capable of generating an audio signal for musicalsound, sound effects, etc. from the waveform data stored in the soundbuffer.

When the information processing apparatus 11 having the configuration asdescribed above is turned on, the operating system programs for the CPU300 and for the input and output processor 304 are read from the maskROM 310. The CPU 300 and the input and output processor 304 run thecorresponding operating system programs. This allows the CPU 300 tocontrol the components of the information processing apparatus 11 in acoordinated manner. The input and output processor 304 controls theinput and output of signals from and to the controller 12, the memorycard 326, etc.

Upon starting the operating system program, the CPU 300 performs aninitialization process such as verification of the operation. The CPU300 then controls the optical disk reading unit 306 to read anapplication program such as a game stored in the optical disk and loadthe program in the main memory 308, and then runs, for example, the gameapplication program. When the game application program is run, the CPU300 controls the GPU 302 and the sound processor 312 in accordance witha user instruction acknowledged from the controller 12 via the input andoutput processor 304, so as to control the display of images, andgeneration of sound effects or musical sound, etc.

For example, when a movie stored in the optical disk is played back, theCPU 300 controls the GPU 302 and the sound processor 312 in accordancewith a user instruction (command) acknowledged from the controller 12via the input and output processor 304, so as to control the display ofimages, generation of sound effects or musical sound, etc in the movieplayed back from the optical disk.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing the functional configuration of theinformation processing apparatus 11 of FIG. 1. As in FIG. 2, it will beobvious to those skilled in the art that the functional blocks of FIG. 6may be implemented in a variety of manners by a combination of hardwareand software. For example, the functional blocks of FIG. 6 may be storedin a predetermined recording medium as computer programs. The programsmay be installed in the hard disk drive 334 of FIG. 5, read into themain memory 308 of the information processing apparatus 11, and run bythe CPU 300. In other words, it can be said that the functional blocksof FIG. 6 show various modules forming the program viewing AP.

The information processing apparatus 11 is provided with an externalinterface unit 40, a data storage unit 48, and a data processing unit56. The external interface unit 40 provides an interface with variousexternal devices. The data processing unit 56 exchanges data with anexternal device via the external interface unit 40. The externalinterface unit 40 includes a tuner IF unit 41, a communicationprocessing unit 42, an operation detection unit 44, and a display dataoutput unit 46.

The tuner IF unit 41 provides an interface with the tuner 13 and sendsdata acknowledged from the tuner 13 to the data processing unit 56. Thecommunication processing unit 42 runs a process of communicating withthe information management server 16 and the search server 17 via theInternet 15. The operation detection unit 44 detects a viewer operationof the controller 12 and sends the content of operation to the dataprocessing unit 56. The display data output unit 46 sends the data forvideos and images for display sent from a display processing unit 78(described later) to the display 14 to display the videos and imagesaccordingly.

The data storage unit 48 is a storage area for storing data and may beimplemented as a hard disk drive and data stored therein. The datastorage unit 48 includes a program information storage unit 50, arecording information storage unit 52, and a thumbnail storage unit 54.

The program information storage unit 50 stores program information on aplurality of programs that should be displayed in the electronic programguide. FIG. 7 shows the structure of data stored in the programinformation storage unit 50. A program summary field is adapted tocontain summary information on the program. A popularity rank field isadapted to temporarily contain the relative popularity of each of aplurality of programs broadcast in the same time zone.

Referring back to FIG. 6, the recording information storage unit 52stores recording information related to the recording of programs in theinformation processing apparatus 11. FIG. 8 shows the structure of datastored in the recording information storage unit 52. A recording IDfield is adapted to contain a recording ID uniquely identifying therecorded content in the information processing apparatus 11.

A recording flag field of FIG. 6 is adapted to contain a flag indicatingwhether the recording process is completed or whether an error occurredduring the recording process. For example, a record “done” in therecording flag field indicates that the recording is completed, and arecord “not done” in the recording flag field indicates that therecording is programmed. A playback progress rate field is adapted tocontain a value indicating the progress of playback of the recordedcontent, i.e., the percentage of the recorded content already playedback. For example, the playback progress rate “0%” in a record indicatesthat the recorded content has not been played back at all. A contentdata field is adapted to contain data of the recorded content itself,i.e., data for the images of the program recorded.

Referring back to FIG. 6, the thumbnail storage unit 54 stores data fora thumbnail image showing a part of the image included in the recordedcontent on a reduced scale, associating the data with the recording IDof the recorded content. A thumbnail image may be a still image or amoving image.

A physical storage area for the data storage unit 48 to store the datamay be the hard disk drive 334 built in the information processingapparatus 11, the external hard disk drive 336, or the memory card 326.The external hard disk drive 336 may store only the recorded informationof a relatively large data size (particularly, the data in the contentdata field). The storage area for storing the respective data may bedetermined as needed according to the operation of the viewer.

The data processing unit 56 is a functional block for performing dataprocessing and may be implemented as a module of a computer program. Thedata processing unit 56 includes a program image acquisition unit 58, aprogram information acquisition unit 60, an attribute acquisition unit62, a recording processing unit 64, a playback processing unit 66, anindicator acquisition unit 68, a popularity determination unit 70, athumbnail setting unit 72, a search key acquisition unit 74, a searchexecution unit 76, the display processing unit 78, and a viewing statuscommunicating unit 99.

The program image acquisition unit 58 acquires image information of aprogram sent from the tuner 13. The program information acquisition unit60 acquires EPG information sent from the tuner 13 and stores theprogram information of the programs in the program information storageunit 50.

The attribute acquisition unit 62 acquires attribute information of theviewer entered by the viewer, e.g., the age and sex of the viewer. Forexample, the attribute acquisition unit 62 may acquire the attributeinformation from a predetermined storage area adapted to store theattribute information entered by the viewer in a setting screen of theinformation processing apparatus 11.

The recording processing unit 64 programs the recording of a programdesignated by the viewer and records the program accordingly. Moreover,the recording processing unit 64 updates the recording information inthe recording information storage unit 52 as appropriate. For example,the recording flag is set to “not done” in the programmed recordingprocess. In the recording process, the image data for the program to berecorded is successively recorded in the content data field. When therecording process is completed normally, the recording flag is set to“done.” When an error occurs in the recording process, the recordingflag is set to “error.”

When the target program being recorded is ranked at or higher than acertain rank in the ranking of popularity as determined by thepopularity determination unit 70 described later, e.g., when the programis ranked as the third most popular program or higher, the recordingprocessing unit 64 indicates as such in the recorded content. In thefirst form of the base technology, a chapter is inserted into therecorded content when the program is ranked at or higher than a certainrank in the ranking of popularity.

The playback processing unit 66 plays back the recorded content bysending the image data for the content designated by the viewer to thedisplay processing unit 78. In association with this, the playbackprocessing unit 66 updates the recording information in the recordinginformation storage unit 52 as appropriate in accordance with the statusof playback of the recorded content. For example, the processing unit 66sets the rate of playback time relative to the recorded time in theplayback progress rate field.

The playback processing unit 66 may play back only the popular scene inthe program originating the recorded content, in accordance with aninstruction from the viewer. For example, the playback processing unit66 may play back only the portion preceding and succeeding the insertionof the chapter by the recording processing unit 64 for a predeterminedperiod of time. Alternatively, changes in the ranking of popularity asdetermined by the popularity determination unit 70 described later maybe stored in the data storage unit 48. The playback processing unit 66may play back only the portion of the program originating the recordedcontent ranked at or higher than a certain rank in the ranking ofpopularity.

The indicator acquisition unit 68 acquires a live indicator and aprogrammed recording indicator from the information management server16. Typically, the live indicator and the programmed recording indicatorare acquired when the display processing unit 78 starts displaying anelectronic program guide. The latest live indicator and the programmedrecording indicator are acquired when an elapse of a predeterminedinterval period is detected.

The popularity determination unit 70 determines the ranking of relativepopularity of a plurality of programs broadcast in the same time zone inaccordance with the live indicator and/or the programmed recordingindicator. In the first form of the base technology, the larger the sumof the live indicator and the programmed recording indicator, the higherthe program is ranked. Since the live indicator is not available for aprogram not broadcast yet, the ranking of popularity is determined onlyon the basis of the programmed recording indicator. After determiningthe ranking of popularity of programs, the popularity determination unit70 updates the data in the popularity rank field forming the programinformation in the program information storage unit 50.

When the population in which the ranking of popularity should bedetermined is designated by the user, the popularity determination unit70 determines the ranking of popularity in accordance with the liveindicator and the programmed recording indicator associated with thedesignated attribute (in this case, age group and sex). When thepopulation is not designated, the ranking of popularity is determined inaccordance with the sum of live indicators across the attributes and thesum of programmed recording indicators across the attributes.

The popularity determination unit 70 may output the indicator itselfacquired by the indicator acquisition unit 68 as data indicating thedegree of popularity without determining the ranking popularity. In thiscase, the indicator itself is dealt with as the ranking of popularity.

Upon detecting that the recording process is completed in the recordingprocessing unit 64, the thumbnail setting unit 72 refers to therecording information in the recording information storage unit 52 andsets a thumbnail image showing a moving image or still image stored ascontent data on a reduced scale. The thumbnail setting unit 72 storesthe data for the thumbnail image in the thumbnail storage unit 54,associating the data with the recording ID.

Of the plurality of images stored as content data, the thumbnail settingunit 72 according to the first form of the base technology sets athumbnail image from the image of a popular scene in the programoriginating the recorded content. For example, a thumbnail image may becreated from an image immediately preceding or succeeding the insertionof a chapter by the recording processing unit 64. Alternatively, changesin the ranking of popularity as determined by the popularitydetermination unit 70 may be stored in the data storage unit 48 so thatthe thumbnail setting unit 72 may create a thumbnail image from theimage occurring when the program originating the recorded content isranked the highest.

The search key acquisition unit 74 acquires the ID of the program beingdisplayed on the display 14 from a program image displaying unit 84 andacquires, as a search key, program information associated with theprogram ID from the program information storage unit 50. The programbeing displayed may be a program broadcast live or a recorded program.The program information used as a search key may be the program title orthe name of a performer. Alternatively, the information may be a nounphrase extracted appropriately from a character string of the summaryinformation by, for example, morphological analysis.

The search key may not be limited to a key word. The search keyacquisition unit 74 may acquire data of another format (e.g., image dataetc. included in the program information) as a search key. In otherwords, data of an arbitrary format permitted by the search server 17 maybe acquired. Alternatively, the search key acquisition unit 74 may set asearch key using a plurality of elements in the program information asAND conditions. Still alternatively, the search key acquisition unit 74may send the respective elements as search keys to the search executionunit 76 or causes the search execution unit 76 to perform a plurality ofsearch processes successively. Still alternatively, when the programinformation of the program being displayed is updated, the search keyacquisition unit 74 may acquire a new search key from the programinformation as updated and causes the search execution unit 76 toperform a new search using the new search key.

The search execution unit 76 transmits a search request designating thesearch key acquired by the search key acquisition unit 74 to the searchserver 17. The search execution unit 76 acquires, as a search result, acombination of the matching score with the search key and an URL of aweb page from the search server 17. The search execution unit 76acquires the data for the web page determined by the search server 17 tohave the highest matching score with the search key, based on the URL.The search execution unit 76 then sends the data for the web page to thedisplay processing unit 78.

The display processing unit 78 causes the display 14 to display an imagedesired by the viewer by sending the data for a moving image or stillimage that should be displayed on the display 14 to the display dataoutput unit 46. The display processing unit 78 includes a portal screendisplaying unit 80, a standby screen displaying unit 82, the programimage displaying unit 84, a search result displaying unit 86, a programguide displaying unit 88, and a video control screen displaying unit 96.

The portal screen displaying unit 80 displays a portal screen thatserves as a primary source of transition to a plurality of types ofviewing screens or control screens. The portal screen is a top, frontendscreen displayed without exception when any of a plurality of types ofviewing screens or control screens is displayed. The portal screenserves as a common entrance to these screens. The plurality of types ofviewing screens and control screens include a television screen forviewing the image from a program (hereinafter, also simply referred toas “live image”) currently broadcast on terrestrial digital television,a video screen for playing back a recorded program, and a setting screenfor entering various settings for the program viewing AP.

FIG. 9 shows an exemplary portal screen as displayed. On-screenselection icons 102 are for selecting from a plurality of types ofviewing screens or control screens provided by the program viewing AP.The on-screen selection icons 102 include a TV icon 102 a, . . . , and asetting icon 102 h. When the TV icon 102 a is selected, transition ismade to a TV screen. When a program guide icon 102 b is selected,transition is made to an EPG screen displaying an electronic programguide. When a ranking icon 102 c is selected, transition is made to aranking screen displaying a ranking of programs in popularity.

When a schedule icon 102 d is selected, transition is made to a schedulescreen for viewing a schedule (e.g., programmed recording). When a videoicon 102 e is selected, transition is made to a video screen. When aprogram search icon 102 f is selected, transition is made to a programsearch screen for searching for a program being broadcast or scheduledto be broadcast. When a manual icon 102 g is selected, transition ismade to a manual screen displaying a manual related to the operation ofthe program viewing AP. When the setting icon 102 h is selected,transition is made to a setting screen.

A latest information pop 104 represents a pop-up display of the latestinformation corresponding to the type of on-screen selection icon 102that is selectable. Referring to FIG. 9, the TV icon 102 a is being madeselectable. The latest information pop 104, indicating the status ofviewing by other viewers of the program currently broadcast, isdisplayed in association with the TV icon 102 a. For example, the portalscreen displaying unit 80 may display in the latest information pop 104the title of the program ranked No. 1 by the popularity determinationunit 70 among the programs current broadcast.

By way of another example, the portal screen displaying unit 80 maydisplay in the latest information pop 104, which is displayed inassociation with the schedule icon 102 d, the number of currentlyprogrammed recordings or the title of the program programmed to berecorded. The portal screen displaying unit 80 may display a currentlyavailable hard disk space or time available for recording in the latestinformation pop 104 displayed in association with the video icon 102 e.

A status tag 106 indicates the viewing status of the recorded content(in other words, the viewing status based on the video-relatedoperation). The status tag 106 includes an error situation tag 106 a, anunviewed tag 106 b, and a programmed recording tag 106 c. In the eventof an error during a recording process in the recording processing unit64, the portal screen displaying unit 80 displays the situation in theerror situation tag 106 a. The portal screen displaying unit 80 alsorefers to the recording information stored in the recording informationstorage unit 52 and displays the number of recorded contents that arerecorded and not played back yet (0% playback progress rate) in theunviewed tag 106 b. The portal screen displaying unit 80 also refers tothe recording information and displays the number of programmedrecordings not yet processed in the programmed recording tag 106 c.

A recorded content thumbnail 108 is a thumbnail image of each recordedcontent. One thumbnail image is displayed per one recorded content. Theportal screen displaying unit 80 acquires a thumbnail image of therecorded content that should be displayed from the thumbnail storageunit 54 and sets the image in the portal screen. Recorded contentthumbnails 108 for the entirety of the recorded contents may bedisplayed. Alternatively, thumbnail images of only those recordedcontents with less than 100% playback progress rate may be displayed, orthumbnail images of only those recorded contents with 0% playbackprogress rate may be displayed.

Referring back to FIG. 6, the standby screen displaying unit 82 displaysa standby screen. The standby screen is a screen displayed when a vieweroperation is not detected for a predetermined period of time (e.g., 30seconds) or more in the portal screen. The standby screen could beequated with a screen saver. When a user operation using the controller12 is detected while the standby screen is being displayed, the standbyscreen displaying unit 82 terminates the display of the standby screenso that the portal screen displaying unit 80 displays the portal screenagain.

FIG. 10 shows an exemplary standby screen as displayed. In the standbyscreen, the standby screen displaying unit 82 displays an image of athree-dimensional space in which each of the on-screen selection icons102 and the recorded content thumbnails 108 is displayed in varyingmanner, changing its position, angle, and size.

The standby screen displaying unit 82 refers to the recordinginformation in the recording information storage unit 52 so as to changethe mode of display of the recorded content thumbnail 108 correspondingto the recorded content in accordance with the attribute of the recordedcontent. For example, the recorded content with the recording date andtime closer to the current date and time may be indicated by a recordedcontent thumbnail 108 displayed in a varying mode assumed to attractmore attention of the viewer. More specifically, the target recordedcontent thumbnail 108 may be displayed on a scale larger than the otherrecorded content thumbnails 108. Alternatively, the target recordedcontent thumbnail 108 may be allowed to change its mode of display morerapidly than the other recorded content thumbnails 108.

Referring back to FIG. 6, the program image displaying unit 84 displaysthe image of the program on the display 14. For example, when the TVicon 102 a is selected in the portal screen, the program imagedisplaying unit 84 displays the live image of the program acquired bythe program image acquisition unit 58. When the video icon 102 e isselected in the portal screen and playback of the recorded content isrequested in the video screen at the destination of transition, theprogram image displaying unit 84 displays the image of the recordedcontent acknowledged from the playback processing unit 66.

The program image displaying unit 84 displays a control icon foracknowledging a viewer operation in the television screen or the videoscreen (hereinafter, generically referred to as “image display screen”)displaying the image of a program. FIG. 11 shows an exemplary imagedisplay screen 110. Control icons 112 in the figure include a searchicon 112 a for initiating an Internet search using information relatedto the program as a key. Selection of the search icon 112 a represents atrigger for starting a process in the search key acquisition unit 74 andthe search execution unit 76.

Referring back to FIG. 6, the search result displaying unit 86 displayson a browser screen data for the web page acknowledged from the searchexecution unit 76 as a search result. The browser screen is a screen inwhich the web browser is running.

FIG. 12 shows an exemplary image display screen 110. As shown in thefigure, the image display screen 110, and a browser screen 114displaying the search result using the information on the program beingdisplayed in the image display screen 110 as a key are displayed on thedisplay 14 at the same time. Referring to the figure, the program homepage is displayed in the browser screen 114. When the search executionunit 76 performs a new search, the search result displaying unit 86updates the displayed content in the browser screen 114, displaying theresult of the new search in the browser screen 114.

Referring back to FIG. 6, the program guide displaying unit 88 performsa process of displaying an electronic program guide. The program guidedisplaying unit 88 includes a cursor displaying unit 90, a first programguide displaying unit 92, and a second program guide displaying unit 94.The cursor displaying unit 90 displays a cursor that allows the viewerto select a specific program in the electronic program guide and movesthe cursor in accordance with the viewer operation. The viewer selectsan area in which information on a program is displayed (hereinafter,also referred to as “program frame”) in the electronic program guide, byusing the controller 12 to move the cursor. The program frame can besaid to be a cell area formed by a time axis and a channel axis.

When a predetermined viewer operation is acknowledged while a program isbeing displayed by the program image displaying unit 84, the firstprogram guide displaying unit 92 refers to the program information inthe program information storage unit 50 and displays a first programguide, superimposing the guide on the program image. The first programguide includes an arrangement of program information on a plurality ofprograms currently broadcast in respective channels. The first programguide displaying unit 92 displays the first program guide, setting apredetermined transparency rate so that the program image in thebackground is viewable to the viewer.

In the first form of the base technology, the first program guidedisplaying unit 92 displays the first program guide in which only theinformation on the currently broadcast programs is arranged. When aprogram displayed in a program frame ends, the first program guidedisplaying unit 92 displays information on a subsequently broadcastprogram in the program frame.

FIG. 13 shows an exemplary first program guide 116 as displayed. Thefirst program guide 116 shows program frames 118 corresponding to aplurality of channels. The channel name and the program title aredisplayed in each program frame 118. The first program guide displayingunit 92 refers to the program information on the programs and displaysobjects indicating the rank of popularity (hereinafter, also referred toas “popularity rank indicator”) in the program frames 118 for thetop-ranking three programs, associating the objects with the programs.In one variation, the rank of popularity of each program may besuggested to the viewer by varying the color in the program frame 118,the character font of the program information, or the like. The firstprogram guide displaying unit 92 refers to the program information ofthe respective programs periodically (e.g., once in one minute) andupdates the popularity rank indicators accordingly.

The cursor displaying unit 90 displays a cursor 120 for selecting theprogram frame 118. The viewer uses the cursor 112 to select the programframe 118 for the program for which the viewer wishes to view theprogram content or the progress status. The first program guidedisplaying unit 92 acquires a program summary of the programcorresponding to the program frame 118 selected by the cursor 120(hereinafter, also referred to as “temporarily selected program”) fromthe program information storage unit 50 and displays the summary in aprogram summary field 124, allowing the scrolling of the display. Whenthe cursor 120 is moved downward in a given program frame 118, the firstprogram guide displaying unit 92 may display information on the programbroadcast after the currently broadcast program in the program frame118.

The first program guide displaying unit 92 computes the degree ofprogress of the program, based on the broadcast start time, thebroadcast end time, and the current time of the temporarily selectedprogram and displays the degree in a progress indicator 126. In onevariation, the first program guide displaying unit 92 may indicate thedegree of progress of each program to the viewer by varying the mode ofdisplay in the plurality of program frames 118 displayed in the firstprogram guide 116 in accordance with the degree of progress of theprograms.

Further, the first program guide displaying unit 92 displays apopularity transition indicator 128 of the temporarily selected program.When the latest popularity rank of the temporarily selected program isacquired, the first program guide displaying unit 92 sets the popularitytransition indicator 128 to show the status of transition as comparedwith the past popularity rank (e.g., rise, decline or no change).

When a predetermined viewer operation (e.g., depression of a designatedbutton in the controller 12) is initiated by the viewer for thetemporarily selected program in the first program guide 116, the dataprocessing unit 56 acknowledges that the temporarily selected program isdesignated as a formally selected program. This causes the program imagedisplaying unit 84 to switch the program image displayed in the imagedisplay screen 110 to the image of the formally selected program. Forexample, the program image acquisition unit 58 acquires the imageinformation on the formally selected program from the tuner 13, and theprogram image displaying unit 84 displays the program image of theformally selected program on the display 14.

The first program guide displaying unit 92 may further display the liveindicator and/or the programmed recording indicator providing the groundfor the current popularity rank, associating the indicator with theprogram for which the popularity rank indicator is displayed or thetemporarily selected program (not shown in FIG. 13). According to thisform, the viewer can view the data itself that indicates the actualstatus of viewing, in addition to the popularity rank, which is anabstraction of the viewing status of the program.

Referring back to FIG. 6, a second program guide displaying unit 94displays the second program guide in the entirety of the screen of thedisplay 14, when the program guide icon 102 b is selected in the portalscreen. The second program guide shows an arrangement of programinformation on a plurality of programs, using the time axis covering aplurality of time zones as a vertical axis and using the channel axiscovering a plurality of channels as a horizontal axis.

FIG. 14 shows an exemplary second program guide as displayed. The figureshows the second program guide showing program information covering 24hours. A channel indicator 130 is an identifier object for identifying achannel on terrestrial digital television broadcast. A channel interval131 is arranged between adjacent channels. The mode of displaying aprogram frame may be changed for each predetermined time zone (e.g.,each three hours) so that the viewer can have knowledge of programsbroadcast in the same time zone. For example, the color or characterfont of the program frame may be changed.

The second program guide displaying unit 94 enlarges or reduces the areafor the program frames in the second program guide in accordance with aviewer operation. More specifically, the second program guide displayingunit 94 enlarges or reduces the size of the program frames per unit timeor enlarges or reduces the size of the program frames per channel.Associated with this, the volume of program information that can bedisplayed in each program frame is increased or decreased. For example,the mode of displaying the second program guide may be switched suchthat “vertical axis=24 hrs, horizontal axis=9 channels,” “verticalaxis=5 hrs, horizontal axis=7 channels,” “vertical axis=3 hrs,horizontal axis=5 channels,” or “vertical axis=2 hrs, horizontal axis=3channels.”

The second program guide displaying unit 94 displays “the program titleof the program started to be broadcast” on the first line of the programframe in the second program guide, and displays the program summary inthe second and subsequent lines. In the second program guide where“vertical axis=24 hrs, horizontal axis=9 channels,” the program framefor a 30-minute program is displayed so as to consume a minimum unit ofdisplay, i.e., a single line. Thus, program information for a programthat lasts less than 30 minutes is displayed in a balloon in accordancewith the movement of a cursor 132 described later.

The cursor displaying unit 90 displays the cursor 132 for selecting aprogram frame. The viewer uses the cursor 132 to select the programframe of a program for which the viewer wishes to know more detailedinformation or a program that the viewer desires to control for viewing.The program highlighted by the cursor 132 is designated as a temporarilyselected program. The second program guide displaying unit 94 enlargesthe program frame of the temporarily selected program in the directionof channel axis, i.e., displays the program frame in a larger size thanthe other program frames. Further, the second program guide displayingunit 94 displays the program summary of the temporarily selected programin a program summary field 134, allowing the scrolling of the display.

FIG. 15 also shows an exemplary second program guide as displayed. Thefigure shows that the temporarily selected program of FIG. 14 isdesignated as the formally selected program by a predetermined useroperation. The viewer performs a desired operation for viewing theformally selected program by selecting control icons 138 such as aprogrammed recording icon 138 a or a program viewing icon 138 b.

The second program guide displaying unit 94 displays program informationon the formally selected program (e.g., channel name, broadcastingstation name, program title, broadcast date and time, viewing status,program summary) in a program detail window 136. A viewing statusindicator 137 shows the number of viewers of the formally selectedprogram. More specifically, the live indicator, the programmed recordingindicator, or a total thereof may be displayed. When the formallyselected program is designated, the second program guide displaying unit94 displays the program detail window 136, superimposing the programdetail window 136 on the second program guide in a pop-up mode ofdisplay and displaying the second program guide in the background in areduced image quality. For example, the second program guide may bedisplayed in a blurred manner by removing high-frequency components fromthe image data for the second program guide. Alternatively, asemitransparent object may be displayed on the image of the secondprogram guide.

A description will now be given of a variation adapted for a case wherethe display 14 is a 3D display capable of stereographic display. Theimage of the program frame of the program selected by the cursor 132,i.e., the temporarily selected program, and/or the image of the programdetail window 136, as displayed by the second program guide displayingunit 94 may be a parallax view split temporarily or spatially.

For example, when the viewer wears eyeglasses with a shutter, atemporally split parallax view may be displayed, and, when the viewerwears eyeglasses with a polarization plate, a spatially split parallaxview may be displayed. Typically, the program frame of the temporarilyselected program and/or the program detail window 136 is displayed infront of the second program guide.

According to this variation, viewability of the program frame of thetemporarily selected program and/or the program detail window 136 isincreased. Whether a parallax view is displayed or the mode of parallaxview may be preset by the viewer. Alternatively, the informationprocessing apparatus 11 may detect the type of the display 14 anddetermine dynamically in accordance with the type.

FIG. 16 also shows an exemplary second program guide as displayed. Thefigure shows the second program guide displayed after the recording ofthe formally selected program is programmed in FIG. 15. The secondprogram guide displaying unit 94 displays a program frame 140 of theprogram programmed to be recorded in a predetermined mode indicatingthat the recording of the program has been programmed. Associated withthis, a programmed recording line 142 is displayed in the channelinterval 131 of the time zone in which the recording of the program isprogrammed so as to indicate that the program is programmed to berecorded in the time zone. The second program guide displaying unit 94may display a line object indicating a current time in the secondprogram guide in a similar mode as the programmed recording line 142.The provision is particularly useful when the information on the programbroadcast already continues to be displayed in the second program guide.

Further, the second program guide displaying unit 94 temporarilydisplays a setting window for setting the character font of the secondprogram guide on the display 14 along with the second program guide.FIG. 17 shows an exemplary second program guide as displayed. When aparticular character font is designated by the viewer in a settingwindow 144, the second program guide displaying unit 94 immediatelyreflects the designated character font in the second program guidecurrently displayed. In other words, the second program guide asdisplayed is switched to the guide in which program information is shownusing the designated character font. FIG. 17 shows an example in whichthe character size is changed. Alternatively, the character style, i.e.,the type face, may be similarly changed.

The second program guide displaying unit 94 scrolls the second programguide in the time axis direction or the channel axis direction inaccordance with the movement of the cursor 132 in the second programguide, thereby switching the displayed content in the second programguide. As regards the program frame a part of which is no longerdisplayed as a result of the scrolling in the time axis direction andwhich shows a program that has not been completely broadcast yet, thesecond program guide displaying unit 94 displays the program informationthat should be displayed in that program frame in an area that remainsdisplayed after the scrolling, starting at the head of the programinformation. In other words, the second program guide displaying unit 94displays “broadcast start time indicated by minutes+program title” inpreference to the program summary.

FIGS. 18( a) and 18(b) show exemplary second program guide as displayed.In this case, it is assumed that the current time is 17:45. FIG. 18( a)shows the second program guide displayed before scrolling. The figureshows a program guide for a time zone from 16:00 to 20:00. Meanwhile,FIG. 18( b) shows the second program guide displayed after scrolling.The figure shows a program guide for a time zone from 17:00 to 21:00.When the cursor 132 is moved downward in FIG. 18( a), the display isswitched to FIG. 18( b).

The display area of program frames 146, 147, and 148 of FIG. 18( b) isreduced as compared to the status in FIG. 18( a). Since the program ofthe program frame 146 is currently broadcast, the second program guidedisplaying unit 94 displays as much of the program information as can befitted in the area of the program frame 146 that remains displayed,starting at the head of the information. In other words, the positionwhere the program information as displayed starts is shifted to the headof the remaining area.

Meanwhile, since the programs for the program frames 147 and 148 havealready been broadcast, the second program guide displaying unit 94 doesnot change the position where the program information as displayedstarts. The second program guide displaying unit 94 may display theprogram information of the program that has already been broadcast in amode not so noticeable as that of the program information of the programnot completely broadcast yet (e.g., using a light gray character color),and may not change the position where the program information starts inthe program frame displayed in that mode.

Referring back to FIG. 6, when the video icon 102 e is selected in theportal screen, the video control screen displaying unit 96 displays avideo screen for controlling the operation of recording/playing back theprogram on the display 14. The video control screen displaying unit 96includes a recording list displaying unit 98. The recording listdisplaying unit 98 displays a list of recordings that includesinformation on recorded content and a list of programmed recordings.

FIG. 19 shows an exemplary video screen showing a list of recordings. Alist of recordings 150 shows a list of titles, recoded date and time,status, and playback progress rate of the recorded programs. A statusfield contains information indicating the status of recorded content.For example, the information may indicate whether the content isrecorded, programmed to be recorded, or whether an error has occurred. Aplayback progress rate field contains a value indicating the degree ofprogress of the playback of the recorded content. The video controlscreen displaying unit 96 refers to the recording information in therecording information storage unit 52 to set values in the respectivefields of the list of recordings. When a playback button 152 is selectedby the viewer, the playback processing unit 66 starts playing back therecorded content corresponding to the playback button 152.

In one variation, the list of recordings in the video screen may containonly the information related to the content already recorded. In thiscase, the information on programmed recording may be displayed in aschedule screen at the destination of transition reached when theschedule icon 102 d is selected in the portal screen.

Referring back to FIG. 6, the viewing status communicating unit 99periodically transmits viewing status data to the information managementserver 16. The viewing status data associates the program ID of theprogram currently displayed by the program image displaying unit 84,i.e., the program ID of the program currently viewed by the viewer, withthe attribute information of the viewer. Further, the viewing statuscommunicating unit 99 periodically refers to the recording informationin the recording information storage unit 52 and periodically transmitsviewing status data to the information management server 16. The viewingstatus data associates the program ID of the program programmed to berecorded with the attribute information of the viewer. The frequency ofcommunicating the viewing status may be determined in light of the realtime performance required to collect viewing status and of the networkand system load, comparing the requirements. For example, the frequencymay be once in every one minute.

A description will now be given of the operation in the configurationdescribed above.

FIG. 20 is a flowchart showing the operation of the informationprocessing apparatus 11. The figure primarily shows the operationinitiated via a user interface. When an instruction for starting theprogram viewer AP is acknowledged in the information processingapparatus 11, the portal screen displaying unit 80 displays a portalscreen (S10). When a user operation is not detected (N in S12) and apredetermined period of time or more has elapsed in that state (Y inS14), the standby screen displaying unit 82 displays a standby screen(S16), whereupon a determination in S12 is performed for a second time.When the elapsed time during which an operation is not detected is lessthan the predetermined period of time (N in S14), control is returned toS12 without displaying a standby screen.

In the portal screen, the latest information pop 104 is displayed inassociation with each of the icons for selecting respective functionalscreens. The status tag 106 indicating the viewing status or operatingstatus is also displayed. In this way, the viewer can view the usefullatest information in the portal screen without making a transition toeach functional screen. Consequently, viewer convenience is improved. Bydisplaying a thumbnail image of recorded content in the portal screen orstandby screen, the viewer can not only view the recorded content butalso enjoy viewing the history of recording. For example, since thestandby screen shows a thumbnail image in a varying mode, the standbyscreen may be displayed as some sort of an interior decoration. Byallowing a thumbnail image to be displayed in a mode that variesdepending on the date and time of recording, the viewer can easilyidentify and determine a recorded content to view.

When a viewer operation is detected (Y in S12), the standby screendisplaying unit 82 terminates the display of the standby screen if it isbeing displayed. When the operation of selecting the TV icon 102 a isdetected (Y in S18), a live image display process described later isperformed (S20). When the detected operation is not the selection of theTV icon 102 a (N in S18), S20 is skipped. When the operation ofselecting the program guide icon 102 b is detected (Y in S22), a programguide display process described later is performed (S24). If thedetected operation is not the selection of the program guide icon 102 b(N in S22), S24 is skipped. When the operation of selecting the videoicon 102 e is selected (Y in S26), a video screen display processdescribed later is performed (S28). When the detected operation is notthe selection of the video icon 102 e (N in S26), S28 is skipped so thatthe flow of the figure is terminated. When another on-screen selectionicon 102 is selected in the portal screen, the process of displaying ascreen corresponding to the selected icon is performed (not shown in thefigure).

FIG. 21 is a flowchart showing S20 of FIG. 20 in further detail. Theprogram image acquisition unit 58 acquires the image data for theprogram selected by the viewer from the tuner 13, and the program imagedisplaying unit 84 displays the live image of the program in the imagedisplay screen 110 (S30). When a request for displaying a program guideis acknowledged (Y in S32), the indicator acquisition unit 68 acquiresthe live indicator and the programmed recording indicator from theinformation management server 16 (S34), the popularity determinationunit 70 determines the ranking of popularity of the programs accordingto the indicators (S36). The first program guide displaying unit 92displays the first program guide associating the program information ofthe programs being broadcast with the rank of popularity, superimposingthe guide on the image display screen 110 (S38). When a request fordisplaying a program guide is not acknowledged (N in S32), S34 throughS38 are skipped.

When a ranking determination interval (e.g., one minute) correspondingto the interval of collecting the viewing status in the informationmanagement server 16 elapses, the indicator acquisition unit 68 againacquires the latest indicators from the information management server 16(not shown in FIG. 21). The popularity determination unit 70 updates thepopularity rank of each program in accordance with the latestindicators. The first program guide displaying unit 92 displays theupdated popularity ranking of the programs in the first program guide.

By displaying the first program guide showing ranking indicators alongwith the live image of the program, the viewer can know programs thatare currently popular at a glance while viewing the desired program. Inthe first base technology, the viewing status is identified based on aviewing action that can be objectively identified (e.g., viewing of aprogram or a programming of a recording). In this way, viewing statuscan be identified that is more precise than base upon the viewer'ssubjective indicator of the program (e.g., “like,” “dislike,” “intend toview,” or the like), i.e., more properly representing the situation.

Since the channel can be switched by controlling the first programguide, the viewer can select a program of interest as needed based onthe changing ranking order. Since the first program guide shows theprogress status of the programs or the status of transition inpopularity, the viewer can select a program to view by referring to thestatus. Since the program summary of the program selected by the cursoris displayed in the program summary field 124, allowing the scrolling ofthe display, the area occupied by the first program guide is controlledwhile allowing the viewer to view a desired program summary. This helpsmaintain the viewability of program image.

When a request for a search is acknowledged while the program image isbeing displayed (Y in S40), or when the information related to theprogram being displayed is updated (Y in S42) absent an explicit searchrequest (N in S40), the search key acquisition unit 74 acquires a searchkey from the program information (S44). The search execution unit 76transmits a search request to the search server 17 and receives a resultof the search (S46). The search result displaying unit 86 displays thebrowser screen 114 showing the web page retrieved by the search side byside with the image display screen 110 (S48). Absent an explicit searchrequest and updating of the program related information (N in S42), S44through S48 are skipped so that the flow of the figure is terminated.

According to this form, various information related to the programviewed is acquired from web sites on the Internet and presented to theviewer along with the program image. This allows the user to view avariety of information, i.e., information not limited to typical programguide information, associated with the program viewed. Further, since asearch key is automatically retrieved from the program information, itis not necessary for the viewer to designate a search key. When theinformation related to a program is updated, the information displayedin the browser screen 114 is updated as changes occur. In this way, theviewer can view a search result updated based on the latest informationon the program without performing a specific operation and can continueto view the program image.

FIG. 22 is a flowchart showing S24 of FIG. 20 in further detail. Thesecond program guide displaying unit 94 displays the second programguide based on the program information in the program informationstorage unit 50 (S50). The cursor displaying unit 90 moves the displayposition of the cursor across a plurality of program frames in thesecond program guide in accordance with the viewer operation. When thecursor is moved (Y in S52), the second program guide displaying unit 94displays the program frame designated by the cursor, i.e., the programframe of the temporarily selected program, on a larger scale than theprogram frames for the other channels (S54).

A part of the program frame goes out of the view in association with themovement of the cursor (Y in S56). When the program frame is for theprogram being broadcast (Y in S58), the second program guide displayingunit 94 displays the program information in the remaining area of theprogram frame, starting at the head of the information (S60). When theprogram frame is for the program already broadcast (N in S58), S60 isskipped. When none of the parts of the program frame goes out of theview (N in S56), S58 and S60 are skipped. When the cursor is not moved(N in S52), S54 to S60 are skipped.

Subsequently, when the program that the viewer desires to control forviewing is selected in the second program guide, i.e., when the programis formally selected (Y in S62), the second program guide displayingunit 94 displays the program information on the selected program in theprogram detail window 136 in a pop-up display mode (S64). In this case,the control icon 138 is displayed to accompany the program detail window136. The second program guide is displayed in the background in ablurred manner. When the recording of the formally selected program isprogrammed (Y in S66), the second program guide displaying unit 94displays the programmed recording line 142 indicating the time zone ofthe programmed recording in the second program guide (S68).

When the recording is not programmed (N in S66), S68 is skipped. Whenthe program is not formally selected (N in S62), S64 to S68 are skipped.When an instruction for changing the display mode of the second programguide (e.g., change in character font, change in size of program frame,etc.) is acknowledged (Y in S70), the second program guide displayingunit 94 immediately changes the mode of the second program guide (S72).When an instruction for changing the display mode is not acknowledged (Nin S70), S72 is skipped.

According to this form, the area of the program frame in the secondprogram guide selected by the cursor is dynamically enlarged so thatmore program information is displayed than before the selection. Thisreduces necessity for the viewer to perform an extra operation of, forexample, displaying another screen to view program information. In otherwords, the viewer operation for viewing program information issimplified so that the convenience of the electronic program guide isimproved. By superimposing the program detail window 136 on the secondprogram guide, the viewer is allowed to perform an operation for viewingthe program, while maintaining an impression of the time or programposition viewed in the second program guide. By reducing the imagequality of the second program guide in the background of the programdetail window 136, the viewability of the program detail window 136 isrelatively improved.

The display mode of the second program guide is changed as needed inaccordance with user control while maintaining the display of the secondprogram guide, i.e., without making a transition to another settingscreen. This provides the viewer with immediate feedback resulting fromthe change in the display mode. For example, the viewer can immediatelyview the change in viewability. Further, by setting the programmedrecording line 142 in the second program guide in association with theprogrammed recording, the viewer can easily view the setting status ofprogrammed recording even if the viewer cannot directly view the programframe of the program programmed to be recorded due to a large number ofchannels. This helps prevent duplicate programmed recordings orunexpected overwriting, for example.

By displaying the program frame that partly goes out of the view,starting at the head of the program information that should bedisplayed, important information (program title, etc.) is displayed inthe remaining area of the program frame preferentially. When the programinformation is displayed, starting in the middle of the information, theviewer will not be able to determine which program the information isabout. By displaying the information from the start, the viewer can knowthe program content easily. By sliding only the program information ofthe program being broadcast into view in the program frame, only theprogram content of the program that the viewer can view is presented inan easily distinguishable manner.

FIG. 23 is a flowchart showing S28 of FIG. 20 in further detail. Thevideo control screen displaying unit 96 displays a video screen, and therecording list displaying unit 98 displays a list of recordings 150 inthe video screen (S80). In the list of recordings, the recorded contentsuspended in the middle of playback is displayed in a mode to indicateas such. More specifically, the playback progress rate indicating thedegree of the progress of playback is displayed in association with eachof the recorded content. This helps the viewer efficiently determine therecorded content to play back.

When an instruction to start playback is acknowledged (Y in S82), theplayback processing unit 66 starts playing back the recorded content(S84) and sends the data for recorded image to the program imagedisplaying unit 84. The program image displaying unit 84 displays therecorded image on the display 14 (S86). When an instruction to end theplayback is not acknowledged (N in S88), control is returned to S86.When an instruction to end the playback is acknowledged (Y in S88), theplayback processing unit 66 ends the process of playing back therecorded content (S90) and stores the playback progress rate occurringat that moment in the recording information storage unit 52 (S92). Whenan instruction to start playback is not acknowledged (N in S82), S84 toS92 are skipped.

FIG. 24 is a flowchart showing the operation of the informationprocessing apparatus 11. The figure primarily shows the operationperformed as a background process. When a predetermined interval forcommunication (e.g., one minute) has elapsed (Y in S100), the viewingstatus communicating unit 99 communicates the information managementserver 16 of the program ID of the program in which the live image isbeing displayed and the program ID of the program already programmed tobe recorded (S102). When an interval for communication has not elapsed(N in S100), S102 is skipped. The recording processing unit 64 refers tothe recording information in the recording information storage unit 52and performs the programmed recording process. In other words, when therecording process is not started (N in S104) and when the recordingstart time comes (Y in S106), the recording processing unit 64 startsthe recording process (S108). When the recording start time has not come(N in S106), S108 is skipped. When the recording process is alreadystarted (Y in S104), S106 and S108 are skipped.

When the recording process is already started (Y in S110) and when apredetermined ranking determination interval (e.g., one minute) haselapsed (Y in S112), the indicator acquisition unit 68 acquires the liveindicator and the programmed recording indicator from the informationmanagement server 16 (S114). The popularity determination unit 70determines the popularity ranking in accordance with the indicators(S116). When the program being recorded is ranked at or higher than apredetermined rank (Y in S118), the recording processing unit 64 insertsa chapter in the recorded data (S120). When the program being recordedis not ranked at or higher than a predetermined rank (N in S118), S120is skipped. When the ranking determination interval has not elapsed (Nin S112), S114 to S120 are skipped. By inserting a chapter in therecorded content, the viewer can easily search for and identify thestart of a scene that is popular to viewers, when playing back therecorded content.

When the recording end time comes (Y in S122), the recording processingunit 64 ends the recording process (S124). The thumbnail setting unit 72sets a thumbnail image from the recorded video and image occurring whenthe program is ranked at or higher than a predetermined rank and storesthe thumbnail image in the thumbnail storage unit 54 (S126). When therecording end time does not come (N in S122), S124 and S126 are skipped.When the recording process is not started yet (N in S110), S112 to S126are skipped. According to this embodiment, the scene that is popular toviewers is turned into a thumbnail image so that the recorded content ismore easily identified by a thumbnail image.

Described above is an explanation based on the first form of the basetechnology. This form is intended to be illustrative only and it will beobvious to those skilled in the art that various modifications toconstituting elements and processes could be developed and that suchmodifications are also within the scope of the first base technology. Adescription will now be given of variations to the first basetechnology.

The first variation will be described. The search key acquisition unit74 of the first base technology uses program information acknowledged asEPG information as a search key. In one variation, the informationprocessing apparatus 11 may additionally be provided with a captioninformation acquisition unit that acquires caption information incharacter multiplex broadcast (so-called caption multiplex broadcast)from the tuner 13. The search key acquisition unit 74 may use a captioncharacter string included in the caption information as a search key.For example, the search key acquisition unit 74 may subject the captioncharacter string to morphological analysis and use a noun phraseincluded in the caption character string as a search key. Alternatively,when the caption information acquisition unit acquires new captioninformation, the search key acquisition unit 74 may allow the searchexecution unit 76 to perform a new search using the caption characterstring included in the new caption information as a new search key.

The second variation will be described. The search key acquisition unit74 may acquire a search key in accordance with the live indicator orprogrammed recording indicator acquired by the indicator acquisitionunit 68 or the popularity ranking of the programs determined by thepopularity determination unit 70. According to this variation, a searchresult useful for the viewer can easily be provided by using the programrelated information available when the popularity of the program isincreased as a search key.

For example, a search key may be acquired from the program informationor caption character string available when the live indicator,programmed recording indicator, or a sum thereof of a program reaches apredetermined value or higher while the image of the program is beingdisplayed. Alternatively, a search key may be acquired from the programinformation or caption character string available when a program reachesa certain popularity rank or higher while the image of the program isbeing displayed. The caption character string, indicator, and history ofpopularity rank may be stored in the data storage unit 48 in associationwith the program ID, and the search key acquisition unit 74 may acquirea search key based on the history information while the recorded contentis being played back.

The third variation will be described. In the first form of the basetechnology, the first program guide is assumed to be displayed in adisplay mode reflecting the popularity ranking of the programs, and noreference is made to the second program guide. In one variation, thesecond program guide may also be displayed in a display mode reflectingthe popularity ranking of the programs. In this case, the second programguide displaying unit 94 may change the display mode (e.g., color,character font, etc.) of the program frames of the second program guidein accordance with the popularity ranking determined by the popularitydetermination unit 70. Alternatively, similarly to the first programguide, the popularity indicator or the data for an indicator itself maybe displayed in association with the program frame. This variationprovides the viewer with information useful for the viewer that selectsa program for view in the second program guide. For example, a programprogrammed by a lot of viewers to be recorded can be suggested to theviewer, thereby helping the viewer to determine a program that should beprogrammed for recording.

The fourth variation will be described. The first program guidedisplaying unit 92 may dynamically change the size of a program framefor each channel, typically the length in the direction of channel axis,in accordance with the attribute or propensity of the viewer or theinformation related to the program. For example, the first program guidedisplaying unit 92 may refer to the age group or sex of the viewer anddisplay program frames for channels that are more likely to be viewed byviewers having a selected attribute on a larger scale. Alternatively,the higher the current popularity rank, the larger the program frame ofthe program may be displayed. The program frame for a channel in whichthe broadcasting of a program ends and that of the next program has notbeen started may be displayed on a smaller scale than the program framesfor the other channels in which programs continue to be broadcast.According to this variation, the viewability of program frames forchannels that are likely to be selected by viewers is improved and thevolume of displayable program information can be increased.

The fifth variation will be described. The program image acquisitionunit 58 may acquire from the tuner 13 the program image currently rankedat a predetermined rank (typically, No. 1) or higher as determined bythe popularity determination unit 70. When the popularity rankingchanges, the channel from which to acquire image information may bedynamically switched in accordance with the change. The program imagedisplaying unit 84 displays the program image acquired by the programimage acquisition unit 58 in accordance with the change in popularityranking on the display 14. According to this variation, a program thatis popular to viewers is automatically selected so that the display 14always displays the image of a popular program. This implements a sortof zapping without viewer intervention.

The sixth variation will be described. When playing back the recordedcontent, the playback processing unit 66 may communicate the informationindicating as such to the information management server 16 along withthe program ID. The information management server 16 may periodicallysupply the information processing apparatus 11 with a playback ratioindicating the ratio of viewers that have played back the recordedcontent with respect to the viewers having programmed the program withthe program ID to be recorded, associating the ratio with the programID. The playback ratio is stored in the recording information in therecording information storage unit 52. The recording list displayingunit 98 may further display the playback ratio in association with eachrecorded content in the list of recordings. The viewer may select one ofthe plurality of recorded contents for view by referring to the playbackratio of the recorded contents.

The seventh variation will be described. The recording processing unit64 may record the live image ranked at or higher than a predeterminedrank (typically, No. 1) even without a viewer operation for recording.In this case, the recording processing unit 64 dynamically changes thelive image recorded in accordance with a change in popularity ranking.According to this variation, the live image of a popular program isalways recorded in the background. The viewer can later view a programimage popular to other viewers in an efficient manner.

This variation is particularly suitable in the program viewing system 10provided with a plurality of tuners 13. According to the first form ofthe base technology, the viewer can refer to the first program guide andknow that the popularity of a program different from the program thatthe viewer is viewing is increased. However, the viewer may find itdifficult to view the very program image that caused the increase inpopularity even if the viewer switches to the other program. Accordingto this variation, program images that become popular are alwaysrecorded so that the viewer does not miss out on viewing program imagesthat become popular. As a result, viewer convenience is improved.

The eighth variation will be described. When a certain viewer operationregarding the cursor movement in the second program guide isacknowledged, the cursor displaying unit 90 may allow program frames ofprograms programmed for recording to be successively selected by thecursor. According to this variation, the viewer can efficiently selectthe program programmed to be recorded in the second program guide.

The ninth variation will be described. In the first form of the basetechnology, the popularity ranking of the programs is determined in theinformation processing apparatus 11. In a variation, the informationmanagement server 16 may determine the popularity ranking of theprograms across the entire attributes of viewers and the popularityranking for each viewer attribute. In this case, the indicatoracquisition unit 68 of the information processing apparatus 11 mayacquire the popularity ranking as the indicator from the informationmanagement server 16. The popularity determination unit 70 may directlyoutput the popularity ranking thus acquired to the data processing unit56.

The tenth variation will be described. In the first form of the basetechnology, the history of popularity ranking is stored in theinformation processing apparatus 11. In a variation, the history ofindicators originating the popularity ranking may be stored in theinformation management server 16. For example, the informationmanagement server 16 may further be provided with a tally historystorage unit, which may store the tally result of viewing status as atally history, associating the result with date and time information. Inacquiring the popularity ranking of programs broadcast in the past inthe information processing apparatus 11 (e.g., in playing back arecorded content), the information processing apparatus 11 may acquirethe tally history from the information management server 16 to determinethe popularity ranking in the past.

The eleventh variation will be described. In the first form of the basetechnology, the program information acquisition unit 60 acquires EPGinformation from the tuner 13. In a variation, the program informationacquisition unit 60 may acquire EPG information from an informationprovider server on the Internet 15 via the Internet 15. Further, theprogram information acquisition unit 60 may acquire EPG information fromthe tuner 13 and acquire program related information that should beappended to the EPG information and displayed in the electronic programguide via the Internet 15.

The twelfth variation will be described. The functions of theinformation processing apparatus 11 described in the first basetechnology may be implemented in the tuner 13. In this case, the tuner13 may include the CPU 300, GPU 302, main memory 308, hard disk drive334, network card 330, and interface 332 shown in FIG. 5. The functionsshown in FIG. 6 may be implemented by the tuner.

As a thirteenth variation, an explanation is given of a display mode ofa first program guide 116. FIG. 25 shows an exemplary first programguide as displayed in the present exemplary variation. The exemplaryfirst program guide as displayed in the figure corresponds to the oneshown in FIG. 13, and like signs represent like constituting elementsthat are identical to or correspond to those shown in FIG. 13. Adisplayed station indicator 160 shows broadcasting stations beingdisplayed on the image display screen 110. Program frames 118 a, 118 b,and 118 c (also generically referred to as a “program frame 118”) of thefirst program guide 116 each include a view count field 162, a recordingcount field 164, a view count change field 166, a recording count changefield 168, and a progress indicator 126.

The progress indicator 126 shows the degree of progress of each stationprogram at the current moment. The view count field 162 shows the numberof users viewing each station program. The recording count field 164shows the number of users recording each station program. As describedlater, the number of viewing users in the view count field 162 and thenumber of recording users in the recording count field 164 are updatedperiodically (for every passing minute in the present exemplaryvariation and hereinafter). The view count change field 166 shows adifference in the number of the viewing users before and after theupdate, i.e., the value of an increase/decrease in the number of theviewing users associated with the update. The recording count changefield 168 shows the value of an increase/decrease in the number of therecording users associated with the update. The respective values of theview count change field 166 and the recording count change field 168 arealso updated in accordance with the update of the view count field 162and the recording count field 164.

An explanation is now given of a configuration for achieving the firstprogram guide 116 described above. In addition to the configurationshown in the form of the first base technology, the informationmanagement server 16 is further provided with an executed recordingtally unit for counting the number of users executing recordings. Theexecuted recording tally unit acquires the program ID of the programthat the viewer is currently recording from each of the plurality ofinformation processing apparatuses 11 on a periodical basis and countsthe number of recordings being executed. Therefore, the viewing statuscommunicating unit 99 of the information processing apparatus 11transmits the program ID of the program being recorded by the recordingprocessing unit 64 to the information management server 16 on aperiodical basis.

The indicator acquisition unit 68 of the information processingapparatus 11 acquires, as a live indicator, the number of the viewingusers, which is the number of users viewing each program currently beingbroadcast, and the number of the recording users, which is the number ofusers recording each program on a periodical basis from the informationmanagement server 16. The popularity determination unit 70 outputs thenumber of the viewing users and the number of the recording usersacquired by the indicator acquisition unit 68 as it is as dataindicating the degree of popularity.

The first program guide displaying unit 92 displays the first programguide 116 and the displayed station indicator 160 over a program imagebeing displayed on the image display screen 110 in accordance with auser operation. The first program guide displaying unit 92 sets thenumber of the viewing users in the view count field 162, calculates thevalue of an increase/decrease in the number of the viewing users beforeand after the setting, and sets the value of the increase/decrease inthe view count change field 166. The first program guide displaying unit92 sets the number of the recording users in the recording count field164, calculates the value of an increase/decrease in the number of therecording users before and after the setting, and sets the value of theincrease/decrease in the recording count change field 168. The firstprogram guide displaying unit 92 repeats a process of updating the viewcount field 162, the recording count field 164, the view count changefield 166, and the recording count change field 168 every time a newlive indicator is acquired by the indicator acquisition unit 68, thatis, every passing minute.

When the increase/decrease in the number of the viewing users is atleast a predetermined threshold (e.g., plus/minus 500 people), the firstprogram guide displaying unit 92 highlights the view count change field166 more than usual as shown in the program frames 118 a and 118 b inFIG. 25. Similarly, when the increase/decrease in the number of therecording users is at least a predetermined threshold (e.g., plus/minus100 people), the first program guide displaying unit 92 highlights therecording count change field 168 more than usual as shown in the programframe 118 b in FIG. 25.

As a reference for highlighting in the program frame 118, anincrease/decrease in the number is used in here. However, the firstprogram guide displaying unit 92 may calculate an increase/decrease rateand may highlight a field under the condition that the increase/decreaserate shows a change of at least a predetermined threshold.Alternatively, the first program guide displaying unit 92 may highlighta field when either one or both of the increase/decrease in the numberand the increase/decrease rate are at least the respective predeterminedthreshold. Alternatively, the first program guide displaying unit 92 mayhighlight a field when either one or both of an increase in the numberand an increase rate are at least the respective predetermined thresholdor may highlight a field when either one or both of a decrease in thenumber and a decrease rate are at least the respective predeterminedthreshold. It is obvious that either an increase or decrease may be usedas a requirement.

The first program guide displaying unit 92 may suggest a user asignificant increase/decrease in the number of the viewing users or thenumber of the recording users with an effect by displaying apredetermined image or a video image, instead of the highlighting, in acorresponding program frame 118. Further, with regard to the number ofthe viewing users and the number of the recording users, theincrease/decrease in the number and/or the increase/decrease rate may becalculated by the information management server 16, and the informationprocessing apparatus 11 may directly use the increase/decrease in thenumber and/or the increase-decrease rate.

The first program guide displaying unit 92 sets a progress indicator 126for a program shown in each program frame 118. In other words, aprogress indicator 126 is also set to a program not being viewed by auser or a program in a program frame 118 not being selected by a cursor(not shown). This allows the user to more easily overlook the degree ofprogress of a program including a program that is not being viewed orselected. Thus, the user can effectively select a program more easily.The first program guide displaying unit 92 may display the progressindicator 126 while overlaying the indicator 126 on other displays inthe program frame 118 and on the program image. In other words, thefirst program guide displaying unit 92 may overlay-display the progressindicator 126 on another display object.

The display mode for presenting the degree of progress of a program to auser is not limited to the progress indicator 126, which is in graphform. The first program guide displaying unit 92 may set a differentdisplay mode (e.g., a different background color) to the program frame118 according to the degree of progress of a program. For example, aratio of displaying a first background color and a second backgroundcolor of the program frame 118 may be changed sequentially as a progressindicator according to the degree of progress of a program, or the ratioof one of the background colors may be increased progressively as theprogram progresses. Obviously, the first program guide displaying unit92 may also overlay-display the progress indicator, obtained in thiscase, on another display object. The first program guide displaying unit92 may display the progress indicator of a program frame 118 thatcorresponds to a program being selected by the user, that is, a programbeing displayed on the image display screen 110 in a mode that isdifferent (e.g., in a different color) from that of the progressindicator that corresponds to another program not being selected.

When there is a change in the viewing status of the program in the firstprogram guide displaying unit 92, the first program guide displayingunit 92 instantly reflects the change in the first program guide 116 byupdating the view count field 162 of the program frame 118 withoutwaiting to acquire information from the information management server16. More specifically, when a program that is being viewed is switchedto another program, for example, when the operation detection unit 44detects an operation of switching a program, the first program guidedisplaying unit 92 instantly decrements the view count field 162 of theprogram frame 118 for the program that had been selected until theswitching of the program. The first program guide displaying unit 92instantly increments the view count field 162 of the program frame 118that is newly selected.

Similarly, when there is a change in the recording status of the programin the first program guide displaying unit 92, the first program guidedisplaying unit 92 instantly reflects the change in the first programguide 116 by updating the recording count field 164 of the program frame118 without waiting to acquire information from the informationmanagement server 16. More specifically, when the recording of a programis started, for example, when the operation detection unit 44 detects anoperation of starting the recording or when the recording processingunit 64 starts a recording process, the first program guide displayingunit 92 instantly increments the recording count field 164 of theprogram frame 118 of a program to be recorded. When the recording of theprogram is ended, the first program guide displaying unit 92 instantlydecrements the recording count field 164 of the program frame 118 of theprogram that had been recorded.

According to the exemplary variation, the number of the viewing usersand the number of the recording users of each program are displayed inthe first program guide 116. Therefore, a user can more easily know thedegree of popularity of each program, specifically. Since anincrease/decrease in the number is displayed, the user can more easilyknow the transition in popularity of each program, specifically. Also,the user can more easily know, almost in real time, a program with adrastic increase or decrease in the number of viewing users or thenumber of the recording users, in other words, a program having adrastic change in its popularity. As described above, theuser-friendliness for a program selection as well as the interest inviewing the program can be increased by allowing the trend of otherviewers to be more easily known in addition to simply allowing a programimage to be viewed. For example, notifying a user of the presence of aprogram with increasing popularity arouses a user's desire to view theprogram, preventing the user from missing the program to be viewed.

Second Base Technology

FIG. 26 shows the configuration of an information processing system 100according to a second form of the base technology of the presentinvention. In addition to the configuration stated in the first basetechnology, a program viewing system 10 and a posting site server 18 areconnected via the Internet 15 in the information processing system 100of the second base technology.

The posting site server 18 puts a posting site on the Internet 15 thatallows for an instant posting of a feedback comment (typically shortsentences of about 100 characters and also referred to as a “tweet”) ofthe moment regarding the content of a program that is provided by aviewer viewing the program through the viewer's terminal. To a postedcomment, a tag (hereinafter, also referred to as a “hashtag”) may beadded by a poster (viewer), which is for grouping with other commentsand, more specifically, used as a search keyword for searching aplurality of posted comments all at once.

Upon the receipt of a comment acquisition request (in other words, asearch request) specifying a specific hashtag, the posting site server18 supplies, all at once, a client originating a search request withdata of at least one comment to which the hashtag is added. Such aposting site includes, for example, “Twitter” (trademark or registeredtrademark).

The information processing apparatus 11 of the second base technologyprovides a new viewing experience to a user by acquiring comments postedto the posting site server 18 by various viewers and then presenting thecomments to the user viewing a program being currently broadcast. FIG.27 is a block diagram showing the functional configuration of theinformation processing apparatus 11 of FIG. 26. In addition to theconfiguration stated previously in the first base technology, theinformation processing apparatus 11 further includes a comment storageunit 400, a comment processing unit 402, a comment displaying unit 404,and a regional information displaying unit 406.

In the second base technology, it is assumed that program informationacquired by the program information acquisition unit 60 and then storedin the program information storage unit 50 includes a service ID and anevent ID, which are predetermined as identification information foruniquely identifying a single program, and information indicating thegenre and category (e.g., news, variety, sports, etc.) to which theprogram contents belongs. It is also assumed that the data storage unit48 stores, in advance, information indicating a user's viewing regionthat corresponds to at least one specific broadcasting station as theattribute information of the user.

FIG. 28 is a block diagram showing the comment storage unit 400 of FIG.27 in further detail. The comment storage unit 400 includes anacquired-comment storage unit 410 and a fixed-comment storage unit 412.The acquired-comment storage unit 410 is a storage area adapted to storea comment acquired from the posting site server 18 by the informationprocessing apparatus 11 in accordance with a user operation. To acomment acquired by the posting site server 18, the posting time anddate of the comment are added.

The fixed-comment storage unit 412 is a storage area adapted to store afixed-comment, which is a prepared comment for supporting the creationof a comment to be posted to the posting site server 18. FIG. 29 showsthe configuration of data stored in the fixed-comment storage unit 412.The fixed-comment storage unit 412 stores the information indicating aplurality of types of program genres and categories, for example, news,variety, sports, etc., and fixed comments expected to be appropriate forrespective genres in association with each other. These fixed commentsare also said to be typical comments that are often posted according toa program genre. A “program name” in a fixed comment of the figure isdynamically replaced with the name of a program (e.g., “7 o'clock news,”etc.) being viewed by a user at the time of creating a posting commentas described later.

FIG. 30 is a block diagram showing the comment processing unit 402 ofFIG. 27 in further detail. The comment processing unit 402 includes acomment acquisition unit 420, a comment posting unit 422, and a tagtally unit 424.

The comment acquisition unit 420 transmits a comment acquisition requestto the posting site server 18 by using, as a search key, a hashtagidentified in accordance with a user operation and then acquires thedata of at least one comment to which the hashtag is added from theposting site server 18. The comment acquisition unit 420 then stores theacquired comment data in the acquired-comment storage unit 410.

By transmitting the data of a comment created by a user on a commentcreating screen (described later) to the posting site server 18, thecomment posting unit 422 registers the comment with the posting siteserver 18. In posting the comment created by the user, the commentposting unit 422 adds to the comment a predetermined hashtag thatindicates software (hereinafter, also referred to as “program viewingsoftware”), which is installed in the information processing apparatus11 so as to provide a program viewing function, and a predeterminedhashtag that indicates a broadcasting station being viewed by the user.

The comment acquisition unit 420 and the comment posting unit 422 mayperform the above processes by calling an application programminginterface (API) for acquiring a comment and an API for posting a commentfrom among Web application programming interfaces (WebAPI) put by theposting site server 18.

Referring to a plurality of comments stored in the acquired-commentstorage unit 410, the tag tally unit 424 counts the number of hashtagsadded to each comment according to the type of the hashtags. In otherwords, the number of appearances of each hashtag in the plurality ofcomments is counted. In other words, the number of comments to whicheach of a plurality of types of hashtags (e.g., “#soccer” and “#kokkai”)is added is calculated for each hashtag type. It can be said that thecomments stored in the acquired-comment storage unit 410 are acquiredfrom the posting site server 18 based on a user operation (a screenselection operation, etc.) and are displayed based on the useroperation.

The tag tally unit 424 counts the number of hashtags of a comment postedwithin the past hour prior to the time at which the number is counted(in other words, the posting time and date of a comment are within thepast hour of the time at which the number is counted). The tag tallyunit 424 may start a process of counting hashtags by using, as atrigger, the detection of an operation of displaying an informationscreen or the detection that a certain period of time (e.g., tenminutes) has passed.

FIG. 31 is a block diagram showing the comment displaying unit 404 ofFIG. 27 in further detail. The comment displaying unit 404 includes afirst comment displaying unit 430, a second comment displaying unit 432,a cursor displaying unit 434, a comment element selecting unit 436, acreation screen displaying unit 438, a comment creation supporting unit440, an input comment setting unit 442, and a frequently-appearing tagdisplaying unit 444.

The first comment displaying unit 430 displays an all-TL screen(described later) that displays all tweet lists (hereinafter, written as“TL”) on the display 14. A tweet list of the second base technologymeans a user interface that displays comments posted to the posting siteserver 18 and is a concept including a so-called timeline in which theposted comments are arranged in chronological order. The second commentdisplaying unit 432 displays a channel TL screen (described later) thatdisplays a comment related to a specific broadcasting station and ahashtag TL screen (described later) that displays a comment related to aspecific hashtag.

The cursor displaying unit 434 displays a cursor for a user to select aspecific area (hereinafter, also referred to as an “area”) and aspecific comment on the respective TL screens displayed by the firstcomment displaying unit 430 and the second comment displaying unit 432.When depression of an up or down switch of a directional button of thecontroller 12 is detected by the operation detection unit 44, the cursordisplaying unit 434 may move the cursor over a plurality of areas andcomments.

The comment element selecting unit 436 selects a specific elementcharacter string in an area or comment focused by the cursor inaccordance with the user operation to the controller 12. The elementcharacter string is typically a character string that is different fromthe main text of a comment and is, for example, a URL of a webpage or acharacter string of a hashtag. When depression of a left or right switchof the directional button of the controller 12 is detected by theoperation detection unit 44, the comment element selecting unit 436 maysuccessively select an individual hashtag added to the comment focusedby the cursor and highlight the selected hashtag in a predeterminedmode.

The creation screen displaying unit 438 displays on the display 14 atweet menu screen (described later) for selecting the type of a commentposting operation and a comment creating screen (described later) forcreating a comment for posting. The creation screen displaying unit 438displays a software keyboard (in other words, a “screen keyboard”) forentering characters for a comment on the comment creating screen.

The comment creation supporting unit 440 identifies the genre of aprogram a user is viewing by referring to the program information storedin the program information storage unit 50. The comment creationsupporting unit 440 then selects a fixed comment corresponding to thegenre of the program the user is viewing in accordance with acorrespondence relationship between program genres and fixed commentsstored in the fixed-comment storage unit 412.

The input comment setting unit 442 sets a character, which is selectedby the user through the software keyboard displayed on the commentcreating screen, in a comment creating area of the comment creatingscreen. When a fixed comment is selected by the user, the input commentsetting unit 442 automatically sets the selected fixed comment in thecomment creating area.

When the display of an information screen (described later) isinstructed by the user, the frequently-appearing tag displaying unit 444identifies the top eight hashtags (hereinafter, also referred to as“frequently-appearing tags”) with respect to the number of appearancesof respective hashtags counted by the tag tally unit 424. Thefrequently-appearing tag displaying unit 444 displays each of thefrequently-appearing tags in a frequently-appearing tag display area ofthe information screen along with the number of appearances in aplurality of comments.

Referring back to FIG. 27, when the display of the information screen(described later) is instructed by the user, the regional informationdisplaying unit 406 acquires the number of viewing users, which is thenumber of users viewing a program of each broadcasting station in eachregion from the indicator acquisition unit 68. Therefore, the viewertally unit 26 of the information management server 16 acquires theinformation of the program the user is viewing along with theinformation indicating the broadcasting station from the informationprocessing apparatus 11 and counts the number of the viewing users foreach broadcasting station in each region. The indicator acquisition unit68 of the information processing apparatus 11 acquires the number of theviewing users of each broadcasting station in each region and providesthe number of the viewing users to the regional information displayingunit 406. The regional information displaying unit 406 displays, in abroadcasting-station-specific viewing status displaying area in theinformation screen, the number of the viewing users of each broadcastingstation in each region.

An explanation is given of the operation of the above configuration inthe following.

FIG. 32 shows an exemplary image display screen 110 as displayed andcorresponds to FIG. 11. As described in the first base technology, theprogram image acquisition unit 58 acquires, from the tuner 13, the imageof a single program selected by a user from among a plurality ofprograms being broadcast by a plurality of broadcasting stations, andthe program image displaying unit 84 displays the program image on theimage display screen 110 in accordance with the image information.Control icons 112 of the second base technology include a live functionicon 112 b. When the live function icon 112 b is selected by the user onthe image display screen 110, a live function explained in the followingflowchart is started.

FIG. 33 is a flowchart showing the operation of the informationprocessing apparatus 11 of FIG. 26. When the live function icon 112 b isselected on the image display screen 110 (Y in S130), the commentacquisition unit 420 transmits a comment acquisition request to theposting site server 18 by using, as a search key, the hashtag of each ofa plurality of broadcasting stations that corresponds to a user'sviewing region that is stored in the data storage unit 48. The commentacquisition unit 420 then acquires a comment to which the hashtag ofeach broadcasting station is added from the posting site server 18 andstores the comment in the acquired-comment storage unit 410. In otherwords, the comment acquisition unit 420 acquires comments posted byvarious viewers for a program being broadcast by each broadcastingstation that corresponds to the user's viewing region (S132).

The first comment displaying unit 430 acquires a comment to which thehashtag of each broadcasting station is added that is stored in theacquired-comment storage unit 410. As the number of posted comments towhich a hashtag of a certain broadcasting station is added increases,the first comment displaying unit 430 determines the scroll speed indisplaying the posted comment of the broadcasting station to be faster.In other words, the first comment displaying unit 430 determines scrollspeed such that the scroll speed for the posted comments for abroadcasting station with relatively more posted comments is faster thanthe scroll speed for the posted comments for a broadcasting station withrelatively less posted comments (S134). For example, the first commentdisplaying unit 430 may store a correspondence relationship between therange of the number of posted comments (0 to 20 posted comments, 20 to40 posted comments, . . . , 80 to 100 posted comments) and scroll speedin advance and may determine the scroll speed for the posted commentsfor each broadcasting station in reference to the correspondencerelationship. The first comment displaying unit 430 displays an all-TLscreen for the scroll display of the posted comments for eachbroadcasting station in parallel with one another (S136).

Upon the detection that a predetermined waiting period (e.g., oneminute) has passed, the comment acquisition unit 420 acquires the postedcomments for each broadcasting station from the posting site server 18again (not shown in FIG. 33). In the second base technology, it isassumed that a maximum of 100 posted comments are acquired for eachbroadcasting station in reverse chronological order of the posting timeand date. The first comment displaying unit 430 sequentially changes thescroll speed for the posted comments according to the transition of thenumber of comments acquired by the comment acquisition unit 420. Inother words, the scroll speed is decreased as the number of commentsdecreases, and the scroll speed is increased as the number of commentsincreases. Using a user account in a posting site that is recorded inadvance in the information processing apparatus 11, the commentacquisition unit 420 acquires a comment that is associated with the useraccount in the posting site server 18.

FIG. 34 shows an exemplary all-TL screen as displayed. When the livefunction icon 112 b is selected on the image display screen 110, thefirst comment displaying unit 430 sets a part of the display screen ofthe display 14 to be a live information display area 450. The firstcomment displaying unit 430 then displays an all-TL screen 454 in thelive information display area 450 side by side with the image displayscreen 110 that displays a program image. On the all-TL screen 454, alive function tag 452 that shows that a live function is being performedand an all-TL tab 456 that shows that the screen is the all-TL screen454 are displayed.

The first comment displaying unit 430 displays the comments posted for aprogram being broadcast by each broadcasting station in parallel withone another in an area for the broadcasting station provided in abroadcasting-station-specific comment area 458. In other words, thefirst comment displaying unit 430 displays the comments posted for aprogram being broadcast by a certain broadcasting station independentlyfrom the comment posted for a program being broadcast by anotherbroadcasting station.

This allows real-time comments from other viewers provided for a programthe user is viewing to be sequentially presented to the user. Also,real-time comments from viewers provided for programs the user is notviewing can be also presented to the user at the same time. Viewer'scomments (tweets) are true opinions of viewers that cannot be learnedfrom information shown in program guides. Therefore, a user can checkboth comments for a program the user is viewing and comments for otherprograms at the same time so as to select a program to view. Aninnovative viewing experience can be provided to a user that makes theuser aware of a loose connection with other viewers by sequentiallypresenting the user the thoughts of the moment of people viewing variousprograms at around the same time.

The first comment displaying unit 430 displays the comments posted for aprogram of each broadcasting station in an area provided for thebroadcasting station in the broadcasting-station-specific comment area458 while sequentially scrolling the posted comments to the left inreverse chronological order of the posting time and date at a speed thatcorresponds to the number of postings. This allows the user tointuitively know programs with a large number of comments, which aretypically programs for which many viewers are excited, and also supportsthe user to select a program for which many viewers are excited.

The first comment displaying unit 430 excludes a hashtag and a URLcharacter strings that are added to each comment from being displayed,in other words, hides the hashtag and the URL character strings, whendisplaying a posted comment. For example, after acquiring a comment fromthe acquired-comment storage unit 410, the first comment displaying unit430 may delete hashtag and URL character strings from the comment so asto display the comment. More specifically, upon the detection of apredetermined character string (e.g., “#”) that indicates the start of ahashtag in a comment character string, the first comment displaying unit430 may delete a part of the comment character string that starts withthe predetermined character string and ends with a predeterminedcharacter string (e.g., a blank character or a space) that indicates theend of the hashtag. Similarly, upon the detection of a predeterminedcharacter string (e.g., “http://”) that indicates the start of a URL,the first comment displaying unit 430 may delete a part of the commentcharacter string that starts with the predetermined character string andends with a predetermined character string (e.g., a blank character or aspace) that indicates the end of the URL.

The broadcasting-station-specific comment area 458 includes a pluralityof broadcasting station areas. Although a comment display area of eachbroadcasting station is relatively small, only the main text of eachcomment can be displayed according to this form. This allows a commentto be efficiently displayed while keeping the essential part of thecomment.

The first comment displaying unit 430 acquires the number of viewers ofa program being broadcast by each broadcasting station from theindicator acquisition unit 68 and displays the acquired number of theviewers in a comment display area of the broadcasting station. The firstcomment displaying unit 430 may highlight the area of a broadcastingstation, which corresponds to a program (being viewed by the user) beingdisplayed on the image display screen 110, in a predetermined mode suchas displaying the area in a different background color from that ofother areas. This supports the user to easily distinguish the programcurrently being viewed from other programs.

The first comment displaying unit 430 scroll displays a commentassociated with a user account in a user comment area 460. Aninformation area 462 is an area selected to transition the screen to aninformation screen (described later). A current software tag area 464 isan area selected to transition the screen to a comment to which ahashtag, which indicates a program viewing software, is added, that is,a comment display screen regarding the program viewing software.

The cursor displaying unit 434 displays a cursor for selecting any oneof the areas of respective broadcasting stations in thebroadcasting-station-specific comment area 458, the user comment area460, the broadcasting-station-specific comment area 458, and the usercomment area 460 on the all-TL screen 454. The user can display anarbitrary screen by selecting a specific area by operating the cursorvia the controller 12.

Referring back to FIG. 33, when any of the broadcasting station areas inthe broadcasting-station-specific comment area 458 of the all-TL screen454 is selected by the user (Y in S138), the comment acquisition unit420 transmits a comment acquisition request to the posting site server18 by using, as a search key, a hashtag that is preset to thebroadcasting station (hereinafter, also referred to as a “selectedbroadcasting station”) selected by the user. The comment acquisitionunit 420 then acquires a comment to which the hashtag of the selectedbroadcasting station is added from the posting site server 18 (S140) andstores the comment in the acquired-comment storage unit 410 (S142).

The second comment displaying unit 432 acquires a comment to which thehashtag of the selected broadcasting station is added that is stored inthe acquired-comment storage unit 410. The second comment displayingunit 432 then displays a channel TL screen that displays a list ofcomments in the order of the posting time and date (S144). The channelTL screen is a so-called timeline related to the selected broadcastingstation. When a certain period of time (e.g., one minute) has passed (Yin S146), the step goes back to S140, and a comment is acquired again.The second comment displaying unit 432 updates a tweet list (timeline)on the channel TL screen. In other words, when a new comment is acquiredby the comment acquisition unit 420, the second comment displaying unit432 displays the new comment on the channel TL screen while hiding theold comment.

FIG. 35 shows an exemplary channel TL screen as displayed. On a channelTL screen 470, the live function tag 452 and a channel TL tab 472 thatshows that the screen is the channel TL screen 470 are displayed. On thechannel TL screen 470 of the same figure, a list of comments for aprogram of the selected broadcasting station (the hashtag thereof is“TVAA”) is displayed in descending order of the posting time and date.Different from the all-TL screen 454, a hashtag 474 and a URL characterstring are directly displayed.

When a user operation to the controller 12 is detected during thedisplay of the channel TL screen 470, the cursor displaying unit 434displays a cursor 476. The cursor 476 is moved in a vertical directionfor each comment in accordance with an up/down operation to thedirectional button of the controller 12. The comment element selectingunit 436 successively leaves the hashtag 474 and the URL characterstring selected that are described in a comment focused by the cursor476 in accordance with a left/right operation to the directional buttonof the controller 12. When a predetermined operation (e.g., depressionof a circular button) by the user is detected while the hashtag is beingselected, the second comment displaying unit 432 displays a hashtag TLscreen that includes a tweet list related to the hashtag.

FIG. 36 shows an exemplary hashtag TL screen as displayed. A hashtag TLscreen 480 is a timeline related to a specific hashtag (in this case,“#soccer”). On the hashtag TL screen 480, the live function tag 452 anda hashtag TL tab 482 that shows that the screen is the hashtag TL screen480 are displayed. On the hashtag TL screen 480 of the same figure, alist of comments to which the hashtag “soccer” is added is displayed indescending order of the posting time and date. The cursor displayingunit 434 displays a cursor 484 for selecting the comments.

Referring back to FIG. 33, when an operation of moving the cursor 476 isdetected (Y in S148) before the certain period of time has passed on thechannel TL screen 470 (N in S146), the second comment displaying unit432 temporarily stops the update of the timeline on the channel TLscreen (S150). In accordance with a cursor operation by the user, thecursor displaying unit 434 moves the cursor 476, and the second commentdisplaying unit 432 scroll displays the timeline (S152). For example,when a previously-posted comment that is hidden on the channel TL screen470 is selected by the cursor 476, the second comment displaying unit432 scrolls the timeline for each comment and redisplays the commentselected by the cursor 476.

When no operation of moving the cursor 476 is detected before a certainperiod of time (e.g., 30 seconds) has passed (Y in S154), the cursordisplaying unit 434 hides the cursor 476, and the second commentdisplaying unit 432 resumes the update of the timeline on the channel TLscreen (S156). When the operation of moving the cursor 476 is detectedwithin the certain period of time (N in S154), the step goes back toS152. When there is no operation of moving the cursor 476 at all (N inS148), S150 to S156 are skipped. The same operations as those in S140 toS156 also apply to the display of a hashtag TL screen except that aspecific hashtag is used as a search key.

As described above, the latest posted comment can be presented to theuser by sequentially acquiring the latest posted comment and then bysequentially updating the channel TL screen 470. On the other hand,while a cursor operation (a comment selection operation, etc.) is givenby the user, the update of the channel TL screen 470 is prevented sothat the operation by the user is prevented from being interfered by theupdate of the channel TL screen 470. Generally, compared to a mouse of aPC, etc., there is more constraint on a selection operation, and thedegree of interference to a user operation by the update of the channelTL screen 470 is larger in the controller 12 (e.g., a game controller)that operates the information processing apparatus 11. Therefore,compared to when a mouse is used as operation means, theuser-friendliness can be greatly improved by preventing the update ofthe channel TL screen 470 during an operation by the user.

FIG. 37 is a flowchart that continues from FIG. 33. When a predeterminedoperation (e.g., depression of a square button) of displaying a menu(hereinafter, also referred to as a “tweet menu”) for an operation ofposting a comment is detected on the channel TL screen or the hashtag TLscreen (Y in S158), the comment creation supporting unit 440 identifiesthe genre of a program being displayed on the image display screen 110and acquires a fixed comment associated with the genre from thefixed-comment storage unit 412 (S160). The creation screen displayingunit 438 displays a tweet menu screen including the fixed commentacquired by the comment creation supporting unit 440 (S162).

FIG. 38 shows an exemplary tweet menu screen as displayed. On a tweetmenu screen 490, the live function tag 452 and a tweet menu tab 492 thatshows that the screen is the tweet menu screen 490 are displayed. In thefigure, a new tweet and a retweet, citation, and reply for a commentspecified by a cursor 494 are displayed as selectable tweet menus. Inthe lower part of the figure, a fixed comment 496 associated with aprogram genre “sports” in advance is displayed. The cursor displayingunit 434 displays the cursor 494 on the tweet menu screen 490. The userselects a desired operation area or fixed comment area by operating thecursor 494.

Referring back to FIG. 37, when any one of the selections (a tweet,citation, and fixed comment) is selected on the tweet menu screen, thecreation screen displaying unit 438 displays a comment creating screen(S164). When a fixed comment is selected on the tweet menu screen (Y inS166), the input comment setting unit 442 automatically sets theselected fixed comment in the comment creating area of the commentcreating screen prior to an operation of entering a comment by the user(S168). When a fixed comment is not selected (N in S166), S168 isskipped. Upon the receipt of a request for entering a comment in thecomment creating area from the user, the creation screen displaying unit438 displays, on the comment creating screen, an image showing akeyboard in which various keys are arranged (S170). When a key of thekeyboard is selected by the user, the input comment setting unit 442sets a character that corresponds to the key in the comment creatingarea (S172).

FIG. 39 shows an exemplary comment creating screen as displayed. Acomment creating screen 500 includes a comment creating area 502 and aposting button 506 for posting a comment created in the comment creatingarea 502 to the posting site server 18. In the comment creating area 502of the figure, a fixed comment “this is such an exciting game,” which isselected on the tweet menu screen 490 is automatically set. When a fixedcomment includes a predetermined original character string to bereplaced, the input comment setting unit 442 replaces the originalcharacter string with a replacement character string that corresponds tothe original character string and sets the replaced character string inthe comment creating area 502. For example, when a comment “‘a programname’ is interesting” of FIG. 29 is selected as a fixed comment, theinput comment setting unit 442 changes the fixed comment to “‘the actualprogram name (e.g., 7 o'clock news, etc.)’ is interesting.”

The cursor displaying unit 434 displays a cursor 504 on the commentcreating screen 500. When the user presses down a predetermined button(e.g., a circular button) after focusing on the comment creating area502 by the cursor 504, the creation screen displaying unit 438 displaysa software keyboard. The user enters an arbitrary character in thecomment creating area 502 by operating the cursor 504 to select anarbitrary key on the software keyboard.

As described above, a fixed comment appropriate for a program that isbeing viewed can be extracted from a plurality of fixed comments andpresented to the user by storing a correspondence relationship betweenprogram genres and fixed comments in advance so as to select a fixedcomment that corresponds to the genre of the program the user isviewing. Also, by automatically setting the fixed comment selected bythe user in the comment creating area, user's burden in creating acomment can be reduced. Such a configuration is particularly suitablefor when a software keyboard is used as means for entering characters.In other words, when a software keyboard instead of a hardware keyboardis used in entering characters, user's burden in entering characters isgenerally increased. Therefore, by allowing the user to select a fixedphrase, the number of characters entered by the user can be reduced, andthe user's burden can be thus reduced greatly.

Referring back to FIG. 37, when the posting button 506 is pressed downon the comment creating screen 500 (Y in S174), the comment posting unit422 acquires a character string that is entered in the comment creatingarea. The comment posting unit 422 then sets a final posting comment byadding, to the character string, hashtags indicating a program viewingsoftware, a broadcasting station of a program being displayed on theimage display screen 110, a service ID of the program, and an event ID,respectively. The comment posting unit 422 registers the data of thefinal posting comment by transmitting the data to the posting siteserver 18 (S178). When depression of the posting button is not detected(N in S174), S176 and S178 are skipped. When an operation of displayingthe tweet menu is not detected (N in S158), S160 to S178 are skipped.When none of the broadcasting stations in thebroadcasting-station-specific comment area 458 is selected on the all-TLscreen 454 (N in S138 of FIG. 33), S140 to S178 are skipped.

As described above, by automatically setting an appropriate hashtag fora user viewing a program, all the user needs to do is to enter the maintext of a comment, and the user's burden can be reduced. As describedpreviously, when a software keyboard is used as means for enteringcharacters, the user's burden can be further reduced.

When the information area 462 is selected by the user on the all-TLscreen 454 (Y in S180), the tag tally unit 424 refers to the data ofcomments posted within the past hour from among comments stored in theacquired-comment storage unit 410 so as to count the number of hashtagsadded to each comment according to a type of the hashtags and identifiesthe number of appearances of each hashtag (S182). In addition todisplaying the information screen, the frequently-appearing tagdisplaying unit 444 displays the top eight frequently-appearing tags ina part of the area of the information screen along with the number ofappearances thereof (S184). In addition to these, the regionalinformation displaying unit 406 displays, in a part of the area of theinformation screen, the number of viewing users of each broadcastingstation in each region (S186). A predetermined hashtag (e.g., “#TVAA” ofFIG. 35, etc.) that indicates a broadcasting station is excluded frombeing counted by the tag tally unit 424 or selected as afrequently-appearing tag by the frequently-appearing tag displaying unit444.

FIG. 40 shows an exemplary information screen as displayed. On aninformation screen 510, the live information display area 450 and aninformation tab 512 that shows that the screen is the information screen510 are displayed. The frequently-appearing tag displaying unit 444displays the information of frequently-appearing tags in the past hourin the frequently-appearing tag display area 514. The regionalinformation displaying unit 406 displays, in abroadcasting-station-specific viewing status displaying area 516, thenumber of viewing users of each broadcasting station in each region.FIG. 40 shows the number of viewing users in association with hashtagsthat indicate respective broadcasting stations. The figure also showsthe total number of the viewing users in each area, that is, the totalnumber of the viewing users for a broadcasting station corresponding toeach region. The cursor displaying unit 434 displays a cursor 518 on theinformation screen 510. The user can display a desired hashtag TL screenby selecting a desired frequently-appearing tag or broadcasting stationtag by operating the cursor 518.

Referring back to FIG. 37, when a frequently-appearing tag is selectedon the information screen 510 (Y in S188), the comment acquisition unit420 transmits a comment acquisition request to the posting site server18 by using, as a search key, the frequently-appearing tag selected bythe user. The comment acquisition unit 420 then acquires a comment towhich the frequently-appearing tag is added from the posting site server18 (S190). The second comment displaying unit 432 displays a hashtag TLscreen that displays a list of comments to which frequently-appearingtags acquired by the comment acquisition unit 420 are added in the orderof the posting time and date (S192). When a frequently-appearing tag isnot selected by the user (N in S188), S190 and S192 are skipped. Whenthe information area 462 is not selected on the all-TL screen 454 (N inS180), S182 to S192 are skipped. When a live function is not selected tobegin with (N in S130 of FIG. 33), S132 and all the subsequent steps areskipped.

As described above, by displaying a frequently-appearing tag of a postedcomment that is acquired in accordance with a user operation, a hashtagadded to many comments can be presented to a user. For example,regarding comments posted for a relay program of a soccer game, thereare often more comments to which a hashtag such as “soccer” is addedthan comments to which the hashtag of the broadcasting station is added.In other words, displaying a timeline of comments to which a hashtagsuch as “soccer” is added is often more useful for a user thandisplaying a timeline of comments to which the hashtag of thebroadcasting station is added. Presenting a user a frequently-appearingtag allows a candidate for a hashtag, which is useful to the userviewing a program, to be presented, supporting the user to reach auseful timeline. Since comments acquired from the posting site server 18in accordance with a user operation are the population for countinghashtags, a frequently-appearing tag related to comments the user isinterested in can be efficiently presented to the user.

Described above is an explanation of the second form of the basetechnology. This form is intended to be illustrative only, and it willbe obvious to those skilled in the art that various modifications toconstituting elements and processes could be developed and that suchmodifications are also within the scope of the second base technology.An exemplary variation of the second base technology is shown in thefollowing.

A first exemplary variation is now described in detail. Although noparticular reference is made in the above second base technology, whenthe cursor displaying unit 434 hides the cursor 476 since no operationon the cursor 476 is detected for a certain period of time on thechannel TL screen 470, the second comment displaying unit 432 maygradually updates the timeline displayed at that point for each comment.For example, the second comment displaying unit 432 may hide the oldestcomment in the timeline displayed at that point and add a new comment tobe displayed, which is posted subsequently to the latest comment in thetimeline. The second comment displaying unit 432 may successivelydisplay newly-posted comments in the timeline by repeating thereplacement. More specifically, when comments are arranged in descendingorder of the posting time and date in the timeline, the second commentdisplaying unit 432 may gradually scroll up the comments from thedisplay position of a cursor at the time the cursor is made hidden so asto successively display newly-posted comments. According to thisvariation, new comments are successively displayed starting from acomment selected by a user, facilitating the user to find comments(e.g., comments such as replies and citations) that are related to thecomment selected by the user. The variation can also facilitate the userto reselect a comment selected before a cursor is made hidden.

Further, the second comment displaying unit 432 may replace an oldcomment with a new comment in the timeline at a higher speed or scrollup the timeline at a higher speed as the number of comments that areperiodically acquired by the comment acquisition unit 420 increases.This variation allows the user to more easily know whether the number ofcomments posted for a program is large or small in an intuitive mannerand also allows new comments to be more easily presented to the user ina quick manner.

A second exemplary variation is now described in detail. Although noparticular reference is made in the above second base technology, aplurality of genres may be assigned to each program with regard toprogram information stored in the program information storage unit 50.For example, a genre “news” and a genre “variety” may be assigned to atalk show program. The fixed-comment storage unit 412 may store aplurality of genres in association with the same fixed comment. Forexample, both the genre “news” and the genre “variety” may be associatedwith the same fixed comment “that's funny.” When the comment creationsupporting unit 440 selects a plurality of fixed comments, which are allidentical, for a program to which a plurality of genres are assigned,the creation screen displaying unit 438 may hide either of the fixedcomments on the tweet menu screen 490. According to this variation, asituation can be prevented where a task of checking fixed comments bythe user becomes unnecessarily complicated due to a plurality ofidentical fixed comments being displayed on the tweet menu screen 490and where the user's burden is increased as a result.

Embodiment

FIG. 41 shows the configuration of an information processing system 100of an embodiment. The information processing system 100 of theembodiment has, in addition to the configuration described hereinabovein connection with the base technologies, such a configuration that aprogram viewing system 10 includes a BD recorder 600 a and another BDrecorder 600 b represented generally by a BD recorder (Blu-ray diskrecorder) 600. Typically, the information processing system 100 isconstructed in a house of a user (viewer), and the BD recorders 600 areconnected to an information processing apparatus 11 through a LAN 602 inthe user's house.

The BD recorder 600 periodically acquires program information ofterrestrial digital television broadcast, BS broadcast and CS broadcastthrough a tuner not shown in FIG. 41. Then, the BD recorder 600 causes apredetermined display to display individual program guides. The BDrecorder 600 in the embodiment updates the program guides after every 12hours. Therefore, the BD recorder 600 acquires program informationthrough the tuner not shown at least once for every 12 hours.

As hereinafter described, the information processing apparatus 11 of theembodiment acquires program information stored by the BD recorders 600.However, the information processing apparatus that provides programinformation to the information processing apparatus 11 is not limited toany of the BD recorders 600. For example, in place of the BD recorders600, a different program viewing apparatus or AV apparatus (for example,a television set, an HDD recorder or a DVD recorder) may naturally beconnected to the information processing apparatus 11 and provide programinformation to the information processing apparatus 11.

FIG. 42 is a block diagram showing a detailed functional configurationof the program information acquisition unit 60 shown in FIG. 27 in theembodiment. The program information acquisition unit 60 includes a firstprogram information acquisition unit 610 and a second programinformation acquisition unit 612. The first program informationacquisition unit 610 implements the functions of the program informationacquisition unit 60 described hereinabove in the base technologies. Inparticular, the first program information acquisition unit 610 acquiresprogram information of broadcasting stations provided together withimage information in broadcasting waves of the broadcasting stationsthrough a tuner 13.

The first program information acquisition unit 610 starts acquisition ofprogram information in response to starting of the program viewing AP inthe information processing apparatus 11. The first program informationacquisition unit 610 causes the tuner 13 to successively selectbroadcasting waves of a plurality of broadcasting stations tosuccessively acquire program information of the broadcasting stationsfor up to one week ahead of time and stores the program information intothe program information storage unit 50. Here, in the programinformation, a program name, a program summary and so forth areassociated with a program ID. It is to be noted that the program ID is acombination of an ID (“service ID”) of 16 bits unique to a broadcastingstation and an ID (“event ID”) of 16 bits unique to a program of thebroadcasting station. When the first program information acquisitionunit 610 acquires program information of a certain program, it storesthe program information into the program information storage unit 50irrespective of whether or not the program ID of the program informationis already stored in the program information storage unit 50. This isbecause it is intended for the first program information acquisitionunit 610 to normally acquire the latest program information.

FIG. 43 schematically shows program information acquired by the firstprogram information acquisition unit 610. While the first programinformation acquisition unit 610 acquires the latest program informationfrom broadcasting waves of the broadcasting stations, starting of theprogram viewing AP is a condition for the acquisition. Further, thetuner 13 is a single tuner, and if the viewer starts viewing of aparticular program, then the tuner 13 fixedly selects the broadcastingstation of the particular program. Therefore, the tuner 13 cannotacquire program information of any other broadcasting station.Accordingly, a long period of time may be required until all programinformation of a plurality of broadcasting stations for a plurality oftime zones is acquired. Therefore, when the viewer requests for displayof a program guide, program information within some time zone or programinformation of some broadcasting station may not be acquired and not bedisplayed as shown in FIG. 43.

Referring back to FIG. 42, the second program information acquisitionunit 612 transmits a program information acquisition request inaccordance with the XSRS protocol to the BD recorder 600 to acquireprogram information stored in the BD recorder 600. Similarly to theinformation processing apparatus 11, also each BD recorder 600 acquiresprogram information of the broadcasting stations for up to one weekahead of time, and the second program information acquisition unit 612acquires the program information for the one week from the BD recorder600. The second program information acquisition unit 612 stores theprogram information acquired from the BD recorder 600 into the programinformation storage unit 50 in response to an acquisition situation ofthe program information by the first program information acquisitionunit 610.

FIG. 44 schematically shows program information acquired by the secondprogram information acquisition unit 612. Since the BD recorder 600periodically acquires program information as described hereinabove, itcomprehensively stores program information of a plurality ofbroadcasting stations for a plurality of time zones. However, since theupdating frequency of program information by each BD recorder 600 (inother words, the frequency in which the latest program information isacquired from the outside) is low, the BD recorder 600 may store oldprogram information different from the latest program information.

Therefore, when the second program information acquisition unit 612acquires program information of a certain program and the program ID ofthe program information is already stored in the program informationstorage unit 50, the second program information acquisition unit 612discards the program information without recording the programinformation into the program information storage unit 50. Also, when abroad casting time and date indicated by the acquired programinformation and a broadcasting time and date indicated by the programinformation already stored in the program information storage unit 50overlap each other, the second program information acquisition unit 612discards the acquired program information without recording the programinformation into the program information storage unit 50. Consequently,also when a certain program is replaced by a different program or when aprogram summary to be presented in a program guide is subject toalteration, the latest program information that reflects such alterationcan be set to the second program guide.

It is to be noted that, although the first program informationacquisition unit 610 in the present embodiment acquires only programinformation of terrestrial digital television broadcast, the secondprogram information acquisition unit 612 acquires program information ofBS broadcast and CS broadcast in addition to terrestrial digitaltelevision broadcast. Consequently, the information processing apparatus11 can display program guides not only of terrestrial digital televisionbroadcast but also of BS broadcast and CS broadcast. It is to be notedthat, where the first program information acquisition unit 610 acquiresprogram information of BS broadcast and CS broadcast, also the programinformation may naturally be completed with program information acquiredby the second program information acquisition unit 612.

FIG. 45 is a block diagram showing a detailed functional configurationof the program guide displaying unit 88 shown in FIG. 27 in the presentembodiment. The program guide displaying unit 88 includes a cursordisplaying unit 90, a first program guide displaying unit 92, a secondprogram guide displaying unit 94, a programmed recording countevaluation unit 614 and a third program guide displaying unit 616. Inthe following description, overlapping description of the functionsdescribed hereinabove in connection with the base technologies isomitted, and here, the second program guide displaying unit 94,programmed recording count evaluation unit 614 and third program guidedisplaying unit 616 are described.

The second program guide displaying unit 94 causes the display 14 todisplay a second program guide wherein program information stored in theprogram information storage unit 50 is placed in a region having achannel (broadcasting station) axis and a time axis. FIG. 46schematically shows a second program guide. As shown in the figure, thesecond program guide displaying unit 94 causes a second program guide,in which program information acquired by the first program informationacquisition unit 610 is completed with program information acquired bythe second program information acquisition unit 612, to be displayed.For example, in FIG. 46, within a time zone between 18:00 and 19:00 ofthe channel “01,” α “program α” acquired by the first programinformation acquisition unit 610 is reflected. On the other hand, withina time zone between 19:00 and 20:00, a program summary of a “programCCC” acquired by the first program information acquisition unit 610 isreflected. In this manner, in the present embodiment, a second programguide on which the latest program information is reflected and in whichmissing program information (blank of program information) is reducedcan be presented to the viewer.

Further, the second program guide displaying unit 94 causes controlicons 138 to be displayed. If a terrestrial digital icon 138 c isselected by the viewer, then the second program guide displaying unit 94causes a second program guide of terrestrial digital televisionbroadcast to be displayed. If a BS icon 138 d or a CS icon 138 e isselected, then the second program guide displaying unit 94 causes asecond program guide of BS broadcast or CS broadcast to be displayed. Ifa one-week displaying icon 138 g is selected, then the third programguide displaying unit 616 hereinafter described causes a program guide(hereinafter referred to as “one-week program guide”), in which programinformation of one broadcasting station over one week is shown on onescreen, to be displayed.

If a My program guide icon 138 f is selected, then the second programguide displaying unit 94 causes a “My program guide” to be displayed.The My program guide is a program guide by which program information ofmore than one broadcasting station selected in advance by the viewerfrom among a plurality of broadcasting stations that provide any ofterrestrial digital television broadcast, BS broadcast and CS broadcastis shown on one screen. For example, if the second program guidedisplaying unit 94 accepts a predetermined operation for adding aspecific broadcasting station to the My program guide from the viewer,then it may store the ID of the broadcasting station as a display targetstation for the My program guide. Then, if the My program guide icon 138f is selected, then the second program guide displaying unit 94 mayacquire program information of the display target station on the Myprogram guide from the program information storage unit 50 and cause theprogram information to be displayed on the My program guide.

Now, a hit program indicator 620 of FIG. 46 is described. Theinformation management server 16 in the embodiment further includes aprogrammed recording count totalization unit for totalizing theprogrammed recording count of programs. The programmed recording counttotalization unit periodically acquires the program ID of programsprogrammed for recording by the viewer from a plurality of informationprocessing apparatus 11 and totalizes the program IDs. Therefore, theviewing status communicating unit 99 of the information processingapparatus 11 periodically transmits the IDs of programs for whichrecording is programmed in its own apparatus to the informationmanagement server 16. The indicator acquisition unit 68 of theinformation processing apparatus 11 acquires the totalization value(hereinafter referred to also as “recording count”) of programmedrecording counts of a plurality of programs stored in the programinformation storage unit 50 from the information management server 16.The acquisition timing of the recording count is the timing of startingof the program viewing AP and the timing at which a predetermined periodof time (for example, 20 minutes) elapses.

The programmed recording count evaluation unit 614 specifies thoseprograms that exhibit comparatively high recording counts, or in otherwords, those programs whose recording count is relatively high incomparison with the other programs, from among programs for one weekstored in the program information storage unit 50, as hit programs. Inparticular, the programmed recording count evaluation unit 614calculates an arithmetic average and a standard deviation (hereinafterreferred to as “σ”) of the recording values of the programs acquired bythe indicator acquisition unit 68. Then, the programmed recording countevaluation unit 614 specifies those programs that satisfy recordingcount≧arithmetic average value+2^(σ) as hit programs and sets a hitprogram flag to the program information of the program informationstorage unit 50. If the distribution of the recording counts of theprograms exhibits a normal distribution, then those programs whoserecording count is included in less than 3% from the top are specifiedas hit programs.

When program information is placed into the second program guide, thesecond program guide displaying unit 94 causes the hit program indicator620 to be additionally displayed for program information associated withthe hit program flag in the program information storage unit 50.Consequently, those programs whose programmed recording count iscomparatively high can be indicated to the viewer, and information forsupporting program selection or decision-making in programming forrecording of the viewer can be presented.

Referring back to FIG. 45, the third program guide displaying unit 616causes a program guide, on which program information broadcast in onechannel (broadcasting station) is placed in a region having a date axispartitioned into lanes for seven days and a time axis, to be displayedas a one-week program guide on the display 14. In particular, the thirdprogram guide displaying unit 616 acquires program information for oneweek associated with the service ID of the broadcasting station selectedby the user using the cursor 132 from within the program informationstored in the program information storage unit 50 from the programinformation storage unit 50. Then, the third program guide displayingunit 616 places the program information indicative of a specificbroadcasting date and time into a region corresponding to thebroadcasting date and time from among regions each specified by a dateand a time in the one-week program guide.

FIG. 47 schematically shows a one-week program guide. The figure shows astate in which the cursor 132 selects a program to be broadcast last onJune 19. The third program guide displaying unit 616 places anddisplays, in a display lane (column) of program information of a certaindate (for example, June 19), program information of the date and programinformation of the next date (for example, June 20) continuously.Further, similarly to the second program guide displaying unit 94, thethird program guide displaying unit 616 causes the hit program indicator620 to be displayed. Further, the third program guide displaying unit616 causes a date mark 622 indicative of a broadcasting date of aprogram to be displayed in an associated relationship with each lane ofthe one-week program guide.

The cursor displaying unit 90 causes the cursor 132 for selection of aspecific program to be displayed for the confirmation of the programcontents or for programming for recording also in the one-week programguide. When the cursor displaying unit 90 accepts a moving operation ofthe cursor 132 in the vertical direction (time axis direction) on theone-week program guide, it places the cursor 132 into a state in which adifferent program to be broadcast in a time zone different from that ofthe program selected till then is selected.

Also FIG. 48 schematically shows a one-week program guide. The figureshows a state in which the cursor 132 of FIG. 47 moves in the verticaldirection and selects a program to be displayed first on June 20. When amoving operation of the cursor 132 in the time axis direction on theone-week program guide, which particularly is a moving operation from abroadcasting program on a certain date to another broadcasting programon the next date, is accepted, the third program guide displaying unit616 causes the broadcasting program on the next date to be displayed ina lane same as the lane in which the broadcasting program on the certaindate is displayed. When a moving operation of the cursor 132 in the timeaxis direction on the one-week program guide, which particularly is amoving operation from a broadcasting program on a certain date toanother broadcasting program on the next date, is accepted, the cursordisplaying unit 90 places the cursor 132 into a state in which thecursor 132 selects the broadcasting program on the next date at the sameposition on the date axis without moving the cursor 132 in the directionof the date axis.

Further, when a moving operation of the cursor 132 in the time axisdirection on the one-week program guide, which particularly is a movingoperation from a broadcasting program on a certain date to anotherbroadcasting program on the next date, is accepted, the third programguide displaying unit 616 changes the date of the date mark 622displayed in the lane in which the cursor 132 is positioned to the dateof the next day. In other words, the third program guide displaying unit616 changes over the date mark 622 till then of the lane in which thecursor 132 is positioned to the date mark 622 that indicates the date ofthe next day. The third program guide displaying unit 616 changes alsothe dates of the date marks 622 displayed in a correspondingrelationship with the other lanes to the dates of the individual nextdays.

On the one-week program guide, the user can confirm program informationon the next date only by operating the cursor 132 in the verticaldirection (time axis direction). Thus, the necessity for the user tocarry out an operation in the horizontal direction (date axis direction)in order to confirm program information of the next date is eliminated.Further, since the display position of the cursor 132, namely, theposition) at which the user is to look in the program guide, need not bechanged very much, the program guide which reduces the burden on theuser and is convenient in use to the user can be implemented. Further,by changing the date indicated by the date mark 622 in response to themovement of the cursor 132 in the vertical direction, even if a programof a different broadcasting date is selected by the movement of thecursor 132, the broadcasting date of the program can be recognizedreadily by the user.

Although an example wherein the cursor 132 is moved in the downwarddirection to advance the broadcasting date is described above, theforegoing description applies similarly also to where the cursor 132 ismoved upwardly to date back the broadcasting date. For example, when amoving operation of the cursor 132 in the time axis direction on theone-week program guide, which particularly is a moving operation from abroadcasting program on a certain date to another broadcasting programon the preceding date, is accepted, the third program guide displayingunit 616 causes the broadcasting program on the preceding date to bedisplayed in a lane same as the lane in which the broadcasting programon the certain date is displayed. When a moving operation of the cursor132 in the time axis direction on the one-week program guide, whichparticularly is a moving operation from a broadcasting program on acertain date to another broadcasting program on the preceding date, isaccepted, the cursor displaying unit 90 places the cursor 132 into astate in which the cursor 132 selects the broadcasting program on thepreceding date at the same position on the date axis without moving thecursor 132 in the direction of the date axis. Further, the third programguide displaying unit 616 changes the date of the date mark 622displayed in the lane in which the cursor 132 is positioned to thepreceding date.

Operation by the configuration described above is described below.

FIG. 49 is a flowchart showing operation of the information processingapparatus 11. If a predetermined operation of the user for thecontroller 12 is detected (Y in S200), then a second program guidedisplay process hereinafter described is executed (S202). If thepredetermined operation is not detected (N in S200), then S202 isskipped. If a request for displaying a one-week program guide isreceived (Y in S204) during display of a second program guide (Y inS203), then the third program guide displaying unit 616 causes aone-week program guide to be displayed (S206). If a moving operation ofthe cursor 132 on the one-week program guide is detected (Y in S208) andthe movement is a movement in the vertical direction (movement in thetime axis direction) (Y in S210) and crosses a broadcasting date (Y inS212), then the third program guide displaying unit 616 changes the dateof the date mark 622 associated with each lane of the one-week programguide (S214). The third program guide displaying unit 616 causes theprogram information designated by the cursor 132 to be displayed in apredetermined mode (S216). For example, the program frame designated bythe cursor 132 may be displayed in an enlarged scale in the date axisdirection, namely, in a size greater than that of any other programframe similarly to that by the second program guide displaying unit 94.

If the movement of the cursor 132 does not cross a broadcasting date (Nin S212), then S214 is skipped. If the movement of the cursor 132 is nota movement in the vertical direction (N in S210), then S212 and S214 areskipped. If a moving operation of the cursor 132 is not detected (N inS208), then the processes in the steps beginning with S210 are skipped.If a one-week program guide is not selected as yet (N in S204), then theprocesses in the steps beginning with S206 are skipped. If a secondprogram guide is not displayed as yet (N in S203), then the processes inthe steps beginning with S204 are skipped.

FIG. 50 is a flowchart particularly showing the second program guidedisplay process in S202 of FIG. 49. If the program viewing AP is startedin the information processing apparatus 11 by the user (Y in S220), thenthe first program information acquisition unit 610 acquires programinformation through the tuner 13 and stores the program information intothe program information storage unit 50 (S222). The second programinformation acquisition unit 612 acquires program information from a BDrecorder 600 (S224) and suitably stores the program information into theprogram information storage unit 50 so as to complete programinformation not yet acquired from the first program informationacquisition unit 610 (S226). The indicator acquisition unit 68periodically acquires the recording values of programs stored in theprogram information storage unit 50 from the information managementserver 16 and stores the recording values in an associated relationshipwith the programs into the program information storage unit 50 (S228).

If the program guide icon 102 b is selected on the portal screen of FIG.9 (Y in S230), then the second program guide displaying unit 94 causes asecond program list, in which program information stored in the programinformation storage unit 50 is set, to be displayed (S232). Togetherwith this, the programmed recording count evaluation unit 614 specifieshit programs based on the recording values of the programs, and thesecond program guide displaying unit 94 adds the hit program indicator620 to the hit programs in the second program guide (S234). If theprogram guide icon 102 b is not selected (N in S230), then S232 and S234are skipped. If the program viewing AP is not started (N in S220), thenthe succeeding processes are skipped and the flow of the present figureis ended.

Described above is an explanation of the present invention based on theembodiment. The embodiment is intended to be illustrative only, and itwill be obvious to those skilled in the art that various modificationsto constituting elements and processes could be develop and that suchmodifications are also within the scope of the present invention.

Although not specifically mentioned in the description of theembodiment, the program information placed in the first program guide bythe first program guide displaying unit 92 is program information storedby the program information storage unit 50 and is obtained by completingprogram information acquired by the first program informationacquisition unit 610 with program information acquired by the secondprogram information acquisition unit 612. This similarly applies also tothe program information placed into the one-week program guide by thethird program guide displaying unit 616. Accordingly, not only thesecond program guide but also the first program guide and the one-weekprogram guide on which the latest program information is reflected andin which missing program information is reduced can be presented to theviewer.

In the embodiment described above, program information acquired by thefirst program information acquisition unit 610 is stored into theprogram information storage unit 50 preferentially to programinformation acquired by the second program information acquisition unit612. As a modification, both of the program information may be storedinto the program information storage unit 50, and program information tobe placed into a program guide may be selected by the side by which theprogram guide is produced. In particular, the first program guidedisplaying unit 92, second program guide displaying unit 94 and thirdprogram guide displaying unit 616 may first place program informationacquired by the first program information acquisition unit 610 into aprogram guide and then place, when a region in which no programinformation is placed remains in the program guide, program informationacquired by the second program information acquisition unit 612 into theregion.

Optional combinations of the aforementioned embodiment and exemplaryvariations will also be within the scope of the present invention. Newmodes of practicing the invention created by combinations will providethe advantages of the embodiment and variations combined.

It will be obvious to those skilled in the art that the function to beachieved by each constituent requirement described in the claims may beachieved by each constituting element shown in the embodiment and thevariations or by a combination of the constituting elements.

REFERENCE SIGNS LIST

-   11 Information processing apparatus, 13 Tuner, 60 Program    information acquisition unit, 88 Program guide displaying unit, 90    Cursor displaying unit, 94 Second program guide displaying unit, 100    Information processing system, 600 BD recorder, 610 First program    information acquisition unit, 612 Second program information    acquisition unit, 614 Programmed recording count evaluation unit,    616 Third program guide displaying unit.

INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY

The present invention can be applied to an information processingapparatus by which an electronic program guide is displayed.

The invention claimed is:
 1. An information processing apparatuscomprising: a program guide displaying unit configured to cause apredetermined display apparatus to display a program guide in whichprogram information broadcast in one channel is placed in a regionhaving a date axis and a time axis; and a cursor displaying unitconfigured to have a cursor displayed for allowing a user to select aspecific program on the program guide and place, when a moving operationof the cursor in the time axis direction on the program guide isaccepted, the cursor into a state in which the cursor selects a programto be broadcast in a time zone different from a time zone of apreviously selected program; the program guide displaying unit having,when the moving operation of the cursor in the time axis direction onthe program guide is a moving operation from a broadcasting program on acertain date to another broadcasting program on a next date, isaccepted, the broadcasting program on the next date displayed at aposition on the date axis at which the broadcasting program on thecertain date is displayed.
 2. The information processing apparatusaccording to claim 1, wherein the program guide displaying unit hasdates displayed in an individually associated relationship with aplurality of lanes of the program guide corresponding to a plurality ofdays of the date axis and changes, when the moving operation of thecursor in the time axis direction on the program guide, which is themoving operation from the broadcasting program on the certain date tothe another broadcasting program on the next date, is accepted, a dateof a lane in which the cursor is positioned to a date of a next day. 3.The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, furthercomprising: a first program information acquisition unit configured tosuccessively acquire, when the information processing apparatus isstarted, program information provided from each of a plurality ofbroadcasting stations; and a second program information acquisition unitconfigured to acquire, from an external information processing apparatusthat periodically acquires program information provided from each of thebroadcasting stations, program information stored in the externalinformation processing apparatus; the program guide displaying unithaving a program guide displayed in which the program informationacquired by the first program information acquisition unit is completedwith the program information acquired by the second program informationacquisition unit.
 4. An information processing method executed by aninformation processing apparatus, comprising: a step of causing apredetermined display apparatus to display a program guide in whichprogram information broadcast in one channel is placed in a regionhaving a date axis and a time axis; a step of having a cursor displayedfor allowing a user to select a specific program on the program guideand placing, when a moving operation of the cursor in the time axisdirection on the program guide is accepted, the cursor into a state inwhich the cursor selects a program to be broadcast in a time zonedifferent from a time zone of a previously selected program; and a stepof having, when the moving operation of the cursor in the time axisdirection on the program guide is a moving operation from a broadcastingprogram on a certain date to another broadcasting program on a nextdate, is accepted, the broadcasting program on the next date displayedat a position on the date axis at which the broadcasting program on thecertain date is displayed.
 5. A non-transitory computer readable mediumhaving stored therein a computer program for causing a computer toimplement: a function of causing a predetermined display apparatus todisplay a program guide in which program information broadcast in onechannel is placed in a region having a date axis and a time axis; and afunction of having a cursor displayed for allowing a user to select aspecific program on the program guide and placing, when a movingoperation of the cursor in the time axis direction on the program guideis accepted, the cursor into a state in which the cursor selects aprogram to be broadcast in a time zone different from a time zone of apreviously selected program; the function of having the program guidedisplayed having, when the moving operation of the cursor in the timeaxis direction on the program guide is a moving operation from abroadcasting program on a certain date to another broadcasting programon a next date, is accepted, the broadcasting program on the next datedisplayed at a position on the date axis at which the broadcastingprogram on the certain date is displayed.